After the Storm Breaking
by Macx
Summary: After the hard reset and the consequences for everyone involved, Finch and Reese are more than happy to get numbers again. The evolving relationship between them takes a new turn or two. Q has to handle a 007 who is close to committing bloody murder, the phoenix inside him rising to a challenge Q can't even perceive. Things are not yet out of control, but they are getting there
1. Chapter 1

Series List:

1. High Voltage

2. Live Wire

3. Sometimes the Words are Hidden

4. Seasonal Currents

5. Redeemed

6. Not All the Facts

7. Under Pressure

8. Circuit Breaker

9. That Which Is Home

10. Lunatic

11. Mostly Business As Usual

12. Phoenix Rising

13. All the Way from the Dark

14. Shadow Dancing

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There was a grunt, followed by a loud crashing noise.

Something splintered.

Another grunt, then a gasp.

A low growl rumbled through the ear piece and Harold Finch interrupted his work, listening more closely. His fingers stilled on the keyboard, the code suddenly no longer important.

There had been a trace of supernatural in that growl.

"Mr. Reese?"

"Not now, Finch," came the hissed reply.

Something that sounded suspiciously like a shot had him even more attentive to the noises coming in over the ear piece of his operative.

"Are you quite all right, Mr. Reese?"

The scream had Finch wince and he hoped he was correct in his interpretation of the voice. It couldn't have been John. He knew his partner's voice and Reese also didn't have a penchant for screaming. Finch had seen the man get stabbed, shot and beat up and he had rarely uttered a true scream. Usually it was the unlucky thugs who got in his way that uttered quite a lot of noise.

There was another shot and for a long second or two absolute silence reigned. Finch held his breath, aware of his rising blood pressure, adrenaline coursing through his system.

He should be used to it by now. The disturbing amount of painfilled noises and evidence of violence, but he really couldn't. This was violence against his partner and he had seen the result of that too often up close and personal. John Reese might be able to take a lot of punishment, but he was still mortal, flesh and bone, and injuries were painful.

"John?" he queried into the silence.

"I'm fine, Harold," came the breathless reply.

_Thank god_, Finch thought.

"Can't say the same about Manore's goons."

"Ah."

"Don't worry, Finch, they are still breathing."

"Laudable, Mr. Reese. I hope it was a necessary altercation."

That got him a little laugh, more of a snort of amusement. "Isn't it always?"

"I can't be sure, regarding some of the methods you use."

"It's a bit late to critique my methods, Finch," Reese replied amiably, like they were talking about the weather or the opening of a new restaurant around the corner. "I have the name of her employer. I think I'll head over to his address and… talk… some more."

Finch shook his head, fond exasperation bleeding into his voice. "You do that. Please try not to upset Detective Carter with what you leave behind."

Reese chuckled, then switched off the comm. device.

Finch returned to his coding, the smile around his lips still present.

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It had been strange to receive numbers again as if nothing had ever happened. They came through the same channels – the public pay phones – delivered by the disjointed voice The Machine always used, and it was business as usual.

Finch went to work on discovering who their new number was, if they were victim or perpetrator, what electronic traces they had left, what relationships they had, and so on. And Reese did the footwork.

Yes, business as usual.

Their personal relationship had eased up from the almost possessive need the hellhound had shown to be close to Harold. Reese had slept wherever Finch was for the past two weeks. He would come in at night, silent, like a dark shadow that wasn't even real, and slide into bed with him.

Sometimes Finch didn't even notice until the bed dipped marginally as his partner moved. It should be disconcerting, but it was… normal; expected; actually, yes, wanted.

Harold had always been a very private person, paranoid about who knew what about him, and even Nathan had never known his real name. He had accused him of not knowing himself anymore. Maybe that had even been the truth for a while.

He was so many people. They all had a background, a life he had never really lived, and they had a job. It was a job he worked at sometimes, though he had had to let a few of them 'die' in the past two years. It had been simple necessity, fueled by paranoia, and he didn't really mourn those aliases.

He had so many more to choose from.

But now, since the events of two weeks ago, matters had taken a sharp turn into a direction he had never truly pondered, nor dared to. So much had changed and still so much was still changing; small things, big things, everything.

Like John.

Their connection had intensified without being stifling. The supernatural was closer now, but no longer possessive. He was around as much as before. Always close, just like before. Always gentle and careful, just like before. Finch had simply gained a new understanding and it eased his mind. The fear that he had shackled and crippled the hellhound, had tied him to the handicapped cripple he was, had disappeared.

Because he understood.

He understood where John was coming from, what drove him, what this connection truly meant, and that there was nothing he could have done to stop this man in the first place.

And he seemed… happier. More at ease. Even Carter had remarked on it with a raised eyebrow when they had met over a number.

"Whatever you did, you did good," she told the slightly startled cipher. "Gotta hand it to you." And her smile had been genuine.

"I don't know what you are talking about, Detective."

"Oh, I know you do. Doesn't concern me." She had smoothly switched to what had come up with the latest case and Finch had been slightly off-kilter.

He had no idea whether Carter knew that Reese was a supernatural. If she did, she had neither cared nor remarked on it. Finch knew she was human, had done his research on her the moment the detective had started to hunt for the elusive Man in the Suit. Whatever she apparently saw, it gave her ideas.

Harold sighed.

Ideas were never good and anything that had other people assume they were closer than they wanted to appear in public had Finch on guard. He knew he was a weak spot, that he could be used to put pressure on Reese, and vice versa. He would make sure that nothing of what they were to each other would ever leak.

Paranoia, protectiveness and something that was exclusively linked to John Reese. Yes, Finch would make sure no one caught onto them any more than they already did when anyone found out that Reese wasn't working alone, that someone was guiding him, pulling the strings, protecting him.

Like Elias.

Finch had already gone beyond his own safety zones to help his partner and by now he was ready to do everything in his considerable power to keep him alive and safe.

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Talking to Q was a nice distraction from coding a new program or taking apart a server to make it better, faster, upgrade the memory and improve security. It was routine work, though at the edge of his mind there was this slight nag, this itch, to do what he had done so many years ago: trust someone completely and let himself go.

Reese had offered.

Silently.

Once or twice with words.

But Harold wasn't ready to take that last step and maybe he might never be. He had created The Machine while unconsciously tapping into his full potential, and when he had realized what he had done it had frightened him in a way he had never thought possible.

He was a cipher, had always been a cipher, and his preternatural ability had already landed him in a world of trouble when he was just a teenage boy with a home computer and too much time on his hands. He had hacked into places no human being should be able to, had done things that had made it impossible to be who he had been born as, and he had been running ever since.

Back then he had had no connector, no anchor line. There had been only himself.

Look where it had gotten him.

Nathan had been the unknowing connector at the time of the creation of a machine that had been Finch's solution to protecting his country, and the world. He had done everything in his power to make it safe for him, and he had failed again.

To risk this a third time, to rely on his partner so completely, was a foolish idea in his opinion. He couldn't and wouldn't code like that ever again; he would play it safe. Not always by the book and not always legal – mostly not legal – but he wouldn't create again.

John understood. He let him be. He simply watched; ready, protective, guarding. He let his nature guide him and Finch had come to rely on that strength more than he wanted to admit.

"How are you doing, Mr. Whittmore?" Finch asked as he made himself some tea, shoving the ideas running around his mind back into the drawer, locking it firmly.

Bear sat at his side, hoping for a treat, and Finch finally gave in and took out a Doggy Danish from the cardboard box Reese had left here yesterday. Bear looked absolutely happy and munched on the Danish, then trotted back to his bed.

"Busy, as usual," Q replied amiably. "Mr. Bond is currently rather busy taking apart half of St. Petersburg."

"Ah, troubling."

"Very. He also keeps losing his comm. devices." Q sighed, sounding put-upon. "My gear ends up somewhere unfathomable. If he brings it back, it's in worse shape than one might imagine. And his Christmas wish list for new tech is getting more and more outrageous. I have no idea why he insists on things that can explode."

Finch chuckled. "I know the feeling, though Mr. Reese is rather more straight-forward. His weapons storage in the library is impressive."

"So how have you and Mr. Reese been?" Q asked, sounding amused and curious in one.

Which is how Finch found himself talking about recent developments, about the numbers returning, about Shaw's deeper involvement. It was easy to talk to the technopath. Despite the age difference, the two men were very much alike.

"You have another operative now," the quartermaster teased when Finch mentioned Samantha Shaw.

"Well, in a way. Ms. Shaw has a very strong streak of independence – for someone who used to be an agent who followed orders without question."

"But you like her."

"I like her," he confessed.

He had also set her up with an apartment and a paycheck that equaled Reese's. She had simply cocked an eyebrow and had then gone over her new, very large loft apartment with a fine-toothed comb, looking for any kind of surveillance.

Finch had never gotten a thank-you, but he knew how to take such reactions. Reese hadn't been so different in the beginning, though their relationship had started out quite differently, under more dire circumstances for John Reese.

"She might prove to be a valuable asset."

"She already has been."

Finch took the steeped tea over to his work place and settled down again. Bear seemed to be sleeping.

Everything was quiet on the Reese front. His partner was currently following a number and there hadn't been a peep for the past thirty minutes. Surveillance was tiring and usually meant sitting in one place, taking photos, listening in on conversations until Reese caught something of interest.

"There is something concerning recent events," Q said slowly, "that I haven't told you about, Mr. Finch."

Finch blinked, pulling his attention away from the stream of data on one of his screens. "Recent events," he echoed without making it a question.

"My… meeting with… your creation."

"I know what you meant with recent events in the first place," he said, more sharply than intended. "My apologies," Finch added, feeling a mild tremor of stress creep up on him.

"Of course. No offense taken," Q replied, his British accent more pronounced.

"So, what didn't you tell me?"

Because Finch thought he already knew everything. Q had been part of The Machine and The Machine had been part of him. It had been almost like a meeting of minds, though his program had more or less breeched all of Q's defenses, had taken over, and had hidden underneath his humanity until the hard reset and the limited admin access had run their course.

"The Machine communicates in a way that is unlike what it needs to talk to you," the technopath said slowly. "You hear disjointed voices, it has to call you, but when we were this close… it talked almost normally."

Harold frowned, but he filed that piece of information away.

"It also gave me an update on some matters concerning, well, you and Mr. Reese."

"An… update?"

"If it sounds like a download, it's because that is what it was, Harold," Q said softly. "A download into my brain. About you. Your file. Your past. And Mr. Reese. And… more."

Finch felt like he had been sucker-punched. His mind blanked and panic threaded through every cell of his being.

The Machine had… downloaded information like a file… into Q's brain? The logical part of his mind told him that it should only be normal for a technopath. That this was to be expected of a technopath. That a technopath had been born for this.

But the panic overtook the logic and he closed his eyes, trying to even out his breathing.

"Harold?"

The voice penetrated the panic and when a wet nose pushed against his hand he smiled shakily down at Bear. He petted the dog and he settled his head on Finch's lap, looking almost worriedly at him.

"I'm fine," he murmured, talking to both Q and Bear.

The dog looked unconvinced.

Q sounded doubtful.

"I wanted you to know what happened," he said. "You would never have known, but this is bloody big. It gave me your files and I want you to understand that the knowledge is safe with me."

Finch fought back another wave of panic. "I know that, Kian. I am very much aware of it. It just… caught me slightly off guard."

Understatement of the year.

Q laughed, sounding as strained as Harold felt.

"So, it dumped a file onto your hard drive?" Finch finally asked, trying to understand what had happened, how so much information, about his life, their lives, had been left in a human brain.

"More or less. I'm a technopath. My bloody brain seems to function that way. It wasn't painful, just a lot to digest; literally. I seem to be able to access the information like I would a computer file, and it's not overwhelming. No headache or migraine or any kind of discomfort. It's like those are real memories."

Harold's panic made way for natural curiosity and the analytic part of his mind wondered about how this could really have worked. An organic brain was not made for such a data dump. Memories were made as humans lived. But Q was a preternatural and one who was as rare as they came. Especially the fact that he was stable and sane – and anchored to a phoenix, of all preternaturals.

He calmed himself, breathing deeply. He knew that if he could trust someone, aside from John, it would be Q. They had already shared more private information, though Harold's complete past, including everything The Machine 'knew' about him, was bigger.

"I was thinking of returning the favor," Q said, drawing him out of his thoughts.

"In what way, if I might ask?"

"I would give you my file, Mr. Finch."

"You are a MI6 employee, Mr. Whittmore. Information on you is secret." He smiled thinly. "Also, I could hack your servers and access your files."

"True, though getting past my guards might prove to be quite impossible."

"Is that a challenge, Q?"

"It is, though I would appreciate you not taking me up on that. It's highly bothersome to set everything straight again."

Harold chuckled. "I won't. I appreciate the offer for more information, Kian, but I know why The Machine did it, that it trusted you."

"It was an honest offer."

Finch knew that. He was quite aware of how much trust existed between them and considering who Q was, who Bond was, it meant more than just a few facts about the two men. They were as connected as Finch and Reese, though their psychic link stabilized them in a way that would wreak havoc with either side of the bond if the other ever perished.

There was a soft click and then Reese's voice was there.

"Finch? You there?"

"Always, Mr. Reese. Anything new to report?"

It got him a slightly breathless chuckle. "I did some digging. It seems Mrs. Cordier is in a lot more trouble than a few late taxes and unpaid parking bills. I just had a little… talk with some unfriendly elements."

Finch quirked an eyebrow. "Did you get anything of interest from those unfriendly elements?"

"A name. Edward Rose."

Finch's fingers flew over the keyboard, calling up everyone by that name, trying to link anyone to their recent number.

"Mr. Whittmore?" he addressed the man waiting on the other line. "I have to call you back."

"Good luck on your number," Q simply said. Then he was gone.

Finch went back to work, pushing what he had heard from Q from his mind for now. They had a new case to handle and everything else was secondary.

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They got to Rose by the evening, solved the number's problem, and Reese was back at his loft, a bit bruised but very pleased, by four in the morning. Light from the street lamps below still filtered through the enormous windows since he hadn't lowered the blinds. He hit a switch and they automatically did.

There was an almost wolfish smile playing around his lips as he hung up his coat and slipped out of his jacket, the light in his eyes speaking of satisfaction, coupled with the fading rush of a confrontation that had left him breathless but uninjured and positively exhilarated.

But the adrenaline was wearing down and it showed. There was a slightly ragged edge to his movements, the lines around his eyes, the weariness of his movements. Only someone who had known this man as long as Finch already had could tell. Someone who had seen John Reese at his best and at his worst.

"Good work, Mr. Reese," Harold sounded in his ear, his voice reflecting the same exhaustion John felt.

Reese unbuttoned the white shirt, stripped it off, and the white t-shirt underneath followed.

"You should get some rest, Finch."

"So should you."

"I'm touched by your concern." He toed off the shoes and undid the pants.

"Your sense for self-preservation leads me to the assumption that you haven't slept at all either."

"Which tells me you were awake for it all, too."

Finch smiled. "Good night, Mr. Reese."

More like an early morning, but he didn't care. If there was a new number in the next few hours, Finch would call. Until then, he would get the rest he needed.

Naked, completely unconcerned by who might catch a glimpse of him, Reese walked into the bathroom and took a quick shower. Then simply crashed.

The bed felt more empty than it should. The whole loft felt like something was missing, and so did the cerberus inside him. The instinctual part wanted something that he couldn't have right now, so Reese pushed the instinct away.

He knew he could sleep anywhere, any time. It was something he had been trained to do and it was something that served him well now.

He was dead to the world within minutes.

tbc...


	2. Chapter 2

Q had to confess he had been curious to meet the Macivraes. He had read everything there was about nuckelavee and hecate, but reality was always different. These were the people Bond had leased his land to, who had helped him make it out of the snowed-in town and back to Q, and who Bond seemed to be torn about liking.

Especially Moira Macivrae.

For his partner to dislike someone immediately it took some effort.

So on a Friday, the moment Q had logged off and left Q branch, Bond ushered him into a car he had probably taken from the company pool, and they were on their way.

Bond was driving. Of course he would be. Q didn't really mind because it gave him the freedom to experiment with whatever he had along for the ride, or to stretch his technopathic senses and brush along whatever tickled his fancy en route.

James watched him with a hint of amusement reflecting in his eyes. Q felt firmly anchored, was in no danger of slip-sliding somewhere he might not get out in one piece, and it was very good training. It helped to be able to switch and turn and log into another source within a fraction of a second, grab what he needed, make a dash, leave no trace.

And it was fun.

Yes, it was actually fun.

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Arriving in the middle of the night had the advantage that there was no welcome committee to deal with after a long day at work and an even longer drive into the middle of nowhere. Q simply unpacked – pushing his clothes into the wardrobe without caring where things went – and then fell onto the bed.

James chuckled, slipping out of his black sweater and unbuttoning the crisp, white shirt. The man looked suave even in jeans and a t-shirt. And Q liked to watch.

"You'll regret that in the morning," his agent remarked, glancing at the wardrobe.

"Most likely, but I can't bring myself to care right now."

It was far more entertaining to watch Bond undress.

It came as no surprise that the preternatural chose only boxers as appropriate sleep wear. Q had been more surprised that he was actually wearing anything.

"Are you going to sleep fully clothed?" James teased.

"Hm, yes."

"I doubt it, Q."

Strong fingers slid under his sweater and pushed it up a little, stopped by Q's weight on it.

"Up," Bond commanded.

He groaned and did as ordered, sliding the sweater over his head without dislodging his glasses. They were plucked off his nose a second later and James kissed him softly.

"Don't need them," he rumbled.

No, he didn't; wouldn't. Nor did he really need to be fully dressed. He liked being naked with Bond.

That problem was quickly solved and when Bond drew him into an embrace, he came very willingly. There was only one blanket and Q knew that come morning he would be either wrapped up in it like a mummy, stealing it from James, or Bond would be wrapped around him, buried underneath the blanket.

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If Q noticed a more possessive note to their encounter that night, he didn't mention it. Bond himself couldn't place the raw energy coursing through him, couldn't really keep it at bay, restrain himself. It was like a primal need to hold onto something, to Q, ride out the rush, and finally a last tremor passed through him.

He came hard, leaving marks on Q's skin, listening to the younger man's groans with dark satisfaction.

_Mine_, the phoenix crowed deep in his soul.

And for everyone to see and know.

He hadn't been thrilled to meet the Macivraes again, especially the hecate, but Q had wanted to meet the two people who had helped Bond get back home. And Bond knew it was good manners to accept the open invitation, finish what had started in late March.

Resting his head against Q's shoulder, panting softly, he enjoyed a rush that shouldn't end. Like taking a rollercoaster ride and plunging deep, only to stop and realize it was over. Adrenaline high. Sugar rush. Whatever it was called, it had been damn good.

Q scratched blunt fingernails over his scalp, down his neck, faint marks that would be gone soon.

"She really got to you," the technopath murmured.

Bond raised his head, eyes too bright to be human, too pale in color, and Q kissed him gently, teeth catching at his lower lip. The bite was so soft, it was barely felt.

Still, the phoenix reacted with a tremor deep in its nightmarish soul.

"I'm looking forward to meeting her," Q teased, lips quirking.

Bond snorted, then rolled off the other man to draw Q to him in an easy embrace. Mess and all, he didn't care. He didn't want to leave the bed.

Q complied, the knowing expression almost too much. This was the preternatural side acting, not the human mind, and he was being humored.

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The library hadn't changed in the time John Reese had worked with Finch. It had been a dark, musty place with broken furniture, random piles of debris and malfunctioning lights when he had first stepped into it; it still was. The scaffolding seemed to never go away. No one was apparently interested into why the building was partially covered and no one ever worked there. The library was a derelict, forgotten piece of New York history, lost in the swamp of bureaucracy and a web Harold had woven to make the prominent corner building invisible.

Reese had prowled through the whole of the library several times, top to bottom and back up again. He knew all exits and entries. He knew what doors were locked for good and which would work as an emergency exit in case of discovery. He had mapped out the basement, had categorized rooms in his head, had spent hours just being alone in the twilight of once flourishing rooms, alive with people.

Sometimes he would poke through the debris, see what books had been lost to vandalism or overly enthusiastic workmen while the library had been in the process of being gutted. There were still thousands upon thousands of books. Finch had labeled only some of them to use as his Machine Decoder, and the rest was everywhere. The man was an avid reader and Reese had seen him go through all kinds of books, from science to poetry to fiction to obscure folk books.

Finch never called him on his patrols. But he knew. Reese was convinced that his partner knew and had always known. There were cameras, keeping an eye on things, giving The Machine access and Finch the knowledge he craved.

The small part of the library that had become habitable was almost warm and homey compared to the rest. The lights and heating worked. There was the scent of someone living here, the feeling that this was more than just an office for Finch, and Reese had smiled at first when the cipher had started to outfit their little kitchen – a hole in the wall with a microwave and fridge – with more than just basic appliances.

There was a bed in another room, off the main workspace, hidden behind more shelves, surrounded by equipment and books. The room with the numbers, the screens, the boards, was the heart of their little headquarters. The bed wasn't the most comfortable, but Reese had crashed on it in the beginning once or twice. He knew Finch would sleep here if he couldn't keep his eyes open long enough anymore to drive home; or call a service to get him home.

It was highly uncomfortable for him.

Reese took a gloomy corridor past what had probably been a reading room, then passed an ancient archive – now empty – and finally arrived back at the stairs leading to the more habitable places. He silently climbed up. He knew his way by heart.

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Finch was in the main room, doing his own version of push-ups, when Bear sat up and took notice. His work-out regimen was something that suffered from too much work sometimes, but he had adhered to it quite strictly lately; even if it meant having to read while sweat was dripping on his reading material. That was one reason why he had switched from a tablet to paper again.

He stopped what he was doing and closed the book, then slowly got up.

"Nice read, Finch?"

The low, teasing tones had him scowl at the tall, lithe figure in the black suit. Reese looked impeccable, the smooth features reflecting amusement, the corners of his eyes crinkling a little. There was a tell-tale pull at his lips.

"I can't seem to finish a chapter due to repeating interruptions."

He shot Bear a narrow-eyed look. The dog snorted and picked up his toy, heading over to his bed.

"You forgot the Do Not Disturb sign."

"Ah, my mistake. I will think of it the next time."

Reese walked over to him, eyes alight with the faint silver sheen that spoke of his supernatural heritage. Finch had noticed how the other man dropped his guard around him lately, let himself be what he had been born as, and he thought of it as an incredible sign of trust, a privilege, to see him so… at ease.

And he wondered if any of the prior handlers or team mates had ever witnessed this change.

Probably not.

John Reese was a very private man, kept himself guarded, shielded, hidden under masks, and the hellhound was a trait that the CIA had known about but only used to their advantage.

Like Harold had in the beginning.

He pushed that thought away. Finch hadn't even been aware of what kind of supernatural Reese was until much later, and he hadn't chosen him because of his genetics.

"Still taking my advice seriously, I see."

Finch placed the book on the table and limped over to the chair where the towel was. He picked it up, wiping a little sweat off his face.

"Actually, my therapist's."

It got him a grin, a very knowing grin, and he gave up. Yes, he had taken Reese's remark from so long ago seriously and it had paid off. At least Finch blamed it on his work-out routine.

He had noticed a growing limberness when he went out to assist John, bugging a house, a computer, hacking into something, tracing a lead, following a number when his partner was incapable of doing so. Climbing stairs had become less of a feat. His muscles worked more smoothly, there were less cramps, and his therapist had remarked on it several times, assuming he was doing a lot more rehab work-outs than before, strengthening his musculature.

But he hadn't, really.

Nothing could be done about the fused vertebrae in his neck. Nothing could be done about his back injury. The limp and the limited mobility in his neck where there to stay, but the rest…? Finch was slightly afraid to really dig into the fact that he seemed fitter. The discomfort of working long hours, falling asleep at the desk, had lessened. His body seemed to be able to handle this kind of stress a lot better.

"Walking Bear seems to do you good," Reese murmured, eyeing him without trying to hide it.

The dog in question sat up straight and whined. Finch glanced at it and sighed.

"Yes, it might."

"As do our own work-outs."

He refused to be baited, to look into those dancing eyes and blush. Finch had outgrown blushing a long time ago. He simply scowled again, refusing to think of what their 'work-outs' had been like in the past two weeks.

They were still keeping a professional distance while working on a number, but the time between numbers was theirs. Reese was never pushing himself onto Finch, but he liked to tease. There was a kind of sensual closeness, something not quite visible to an outsider, and it sometimes came up in here as well.

"Nothing to be ashamed of, Finch," Reese added, voice dropping a little, the sensuous tones caressing Harold like an actual touch.

No, he wasn't ashamed. He never would be.

And then the touch was there, brief and fleeting, fingers brushing over his exposed neck. It was a preferred method of contact, a touch, a caress, that was fleeting and feather-light, barely there and gone again. But it drew a reaction within Finch that he hadn't thought possible.

With only a t-shirt and sweat pants covering him, still slightly sweaty, Finch bit back his response and simply shot the other man an exasperated look. John chuckled and retreated, completely unapologetic.

Sometimes Finch wondered how personal barriers could have fallen so quickly, how he could have fallen for this man so quickly, and how they actually worked so perfectly. This hadn't been a psychic link established by two counter-balancing souls, like Q and Mr. Bond. It wasn't something either of them needed, like Q and Mr. Bond. It was… simply there. It was there to stay, to work with, to evolve and grow.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked evenly.

Reese was suddenly next to him, moving as silently as a shadow, and then the touch was back; really back. A hand resting on his hip, lips brushing over one temple, the warmth of the taller, hard-muscled form leeching into him through the thin t-shirt. Something inside Finch responded to the nearness and while his analytical mind refused to assign the bond any deeper meaning, his more instinctive side knew that something was happening to them, that this was more than it had been before.

"Missed you, Harold," John murmured, emotions clear in his voice.

"You needed rest."

"I rest easier when I know you're there."

_Dear god…_

Finch briefly closed his eyes at the emotions the easy spoken words evoked. Yes, this was more than the bond, more than the attraction between them, the physical intimacy. It was something he was loathe to bring up, to talk about with Reese because there was this irrational voice that told him not to jinx it.

And maybe it was only him.

He clearly needed to read up on some matters, more detailed matters pertaining to the cerberus. They weren't really all that rare and others had formed life bonds. There had to be at least a few who had formed this bond with the person they had become intimate with, too.

Q's words came back to him, that hellhounds didn't seek mates like werewolves, that they didn't see a loyalty bond as foreplay to something much closer.

That this was only Finch and Reese's doing, their actions and reactions toward the other.

That their relationship had intensified before any of it had happened, before John had taken this last step.

Yes, yes, and yes. Their work relationship had turned into something a lot more personal and it had created little eddies of… something. It had been tension, sparks snapping to life between them, and it had been attraction. All before John had chosen Finch as his handler, the one he would always trust, no matter what.

The person in whose hands he had placed his life; his soul.

Finch drew a shuddering breath. He really needed to talk to Q again. This was quickly evolving into something that was fast slipping from Harold's control.

He hated loss of control.

As if he had felt the tension racing through the cipher's frame, Reese stepped back, breaking the intimate contact, and Finch opened his eyes to look at him. He felt slightly startled, thoughts derailing, and he wondered what had happened to have Reese break the connection.

Aside from the sudden flare of panic deep within Harold's soul. The panic that always rose when it came to them, to what Reese had done, what it meant, what it was for them and their future.

The hellhound felt it. He had sensed it in a way that would have been impossible a year ago.

John's smile was tell-tale; teasing and quirky and just this side of flirty, too. Yes, he had felt the shift, but he didn't ask, didn't demand, didn't even look disappointed.

"I'll keep that in mind," Finch simply said, fighting to get back on track with their conversation.

And he refused to acknowledge anything that had just happened, that was running through his mind like wildfire, going smoothly back to their conversation.

Reese's smile grew, eyes crinkling at the corners. "You do that. I like you with me, Finch."

"I'm not your security blanket."

The cipher grabbed the towel again and limped off toward the small bathroom, the only functional one in this building. It didn't have a shower, but since it was Finch spending most of the time in the library alone, it was enough.

Reese just smiled fondly. He picked up the tennis ball Bear loved and tossed it. The Malinois chased after the white ball with a happy bark.

Finch closed the door after him to freshen up and change. Only when the door was between them did he allow himself to let his own emotions flow. Masks fell and he knew he was smiling in a way that would probably embarrass him to no end.

John's simple confession had touched something that he had believed withered and close to dead after the explosion had taken his life, had killed him, had destroyed everything he had so painstakingly built. Reese had slowly peeled away the layers of protective scars. He was persistent and patient and stubborn and…

Finch shook his head.

He was Reese. And he wasn't giving up or turning his back on a challenge.

_I like you with me, too_, he thought.

tbc...


	3. Chapter 3

my sounding board-kinda beta-OOC checker is currently in vacation, so there will be a small gap between this post and the next! Sorry! While there is a lot of POI at the moment, the focus will go back to Bond and Q in the next chapters. Bond is getting a lot more exposure to Moira Macivrae than he really wants to have...

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Saturday morning started with a rain shower of epic proportions that lasted for about twenty minutes. It became a drizzle, the sky leaden gray, the sun in hiding.

Q had found waking up to the rain beating against the window a rather calming experience. James was already awake, though from his general drowsiness, it hadn't been for more than five minutes prior to Q's descent from dreamland.

Meeting Moira Macivrae was… entertaining. Q realized almost right away why she and Bond clashed. She was the most direct person he had ever met. The moment she walked into the room, the phoenix seemed to bristle without prior agitation and Bond's expression grew cooler, more distant, almost like facing an enemy, not a potential ally.

The meeting place was a rustic looking pub called The Myth's Well. It was already open, though it didn't look like they would be serving anyone just yet. Someone was busy cleaning out the debris of the night before, the floors glistening wetly. Q would have thought there was a leak somewhere since whoever was cleaning had actually left puddles on the wood and stone.

Not that it mattered. There were puddles outside as well from the rain, which was still not over. The sky had opened a little more, letting faint blue peek through the clouds, but it wasn't going to be a very dry day.

An old woman, clearly way past eighty, came around the corner, mop and bucket in hand, giving them a once-over, but she only nodded a short greeting.

Bond raised a corner of his mouth into a smile, then proceeded into the pub. Q simply followed.

James introduced him to Paul, the owner of the place, then simply sat down to wait. Paul placed two mugs of coffee in front of them and while Q preferred tea, he wouldn't say no to more caffeine.

They didn't have to wait long.

Q rose politely and smiled at the hecate and the nuckelavee who had come in after her. Ewan Macivrae was the more easy-going of the two, Q judged. Probably the physically more dangerous due to his supernatural status, but the elementary witch had wrestled down a semi-stunned phoenix, which was a feat all of its own. Q knew how instinctive his partner was, how survival always came first, how he had been trained to fight under the most dire of circumstances, injured or drugged or bound, and she had probably put a dent in his pride back then.

Yes, he realized where Bond's cold distance came from.

"Mrs. Macivrae, Mr. Macivrae, I'm delighted to meet you in person."

"Call me Ewan," Macivrae simply said, shaking his hand firmly.

Q acknowledged the offer with a nod. "Kieran Whitmarsh," he used one of the aliases for himself.

Whittmore had become almost the default setting for his presumed last name, just like his predecessor had preferred Boothroyd. For the Macivraes, Q had decided on the Whitmarsh identity, with a variation of his first name.

"So you're the one who tamed a phoenix," Moira said, lips curling into a smile as she mustered him quite openly. "I wouldn't have thought that possible, especially seeing you're not even close to what he is. Or to what I imagined a handler of a man like Mr. Bond to be."

Oh yes, quite straight forward. Q suppressed a chuckle. James had tensed even more.

"I wouldn't say tamed," he replied amicably.

"Looking at his murderous expression and the fact that I'm still breathing, I would."

The challenge was clear in her eyes and Q wanted nothing more than to roll his own eyes in response. Bond was almost literally thrumming with tension and if he had been able to change shape, there would be claws and fangs right now. Q had never been more relieved that James was only a preternatural.

"I would call it civil behavior," he pointed out, voice a little sharper now. "Due to the fact that we are all grown people."

She laughed, easing up a little. "I like you, Kieran Whitmarsh." She tilted her head. "If that is your name."

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"I believe Mr. Bond told you I'm a hecate?"

Q nodded.

"We tend to be in tune with the land around us. It helps seek out truth from lies sometimes. It helps in seeing the supernatural and sensing the preternatural. When I see you, I sense the connection between you. And I sense there is more."

Bond's tension could have filled the whole room by now. Ewan simply glanced at his wife, brows rising, but she wasn't deterred.

"Kincade has no idea about either what Mr. Bond is, that he is connected on a soul-deep level to a preternatural as rare as he is, nor does he know what you really do. You told us you serve Her Majesty and your country, Mr. Bond. I can add two and two together." Moira shrugged. "You might be James Bond, but he is not Kieran Whitmarsh. A name is simply a name. There is no power in knowing yours, Mr. Whitmarsh." He smile grew taunting again. "That's all I need to know."

"Good," Bond ground out, sounding like he was close to spitting glass.

Q shot him a frown.

"Since we couldn't do so last time," Ewan spoke up, voice calming, a peace offering clear in his tone, "I would like to introduce you to my clan, to those you leased the land to. We are all very thankful for what you did. I'm also relieved you accepted my – our – invitation to return."

Bond rose, all sinewy, dark grace, eyes still frosty. "My pleasure."

It sounded like he wanted nothing more than to leave. There was the, to Q, well-known serrated edge, the rough timbre.

Fifteen minutes in a hecate's presence and he was ready to throw everything into the wind and leave. A man who had faced impossible dangers, regularly went against all odds, had brought down mad men and governments, had diffused dirty bombs and thrown his life on the line for his country; had died for his country and the mission already.

Q was truly intrigued.

And he inserted himself neatly between Moira and James, smiling easily at her.

She caught his move and smiled back knowingly.

Q decided then and there that to get some answers, he would have to talk to her alone.

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Reese no longer made it a habit to follow Finch whenever he could – or have Fusco tail him. That hadn't really gotten him that many more pieces of information about the secretive man who had hired him. He had caught glimpses of a life that might or might not be the real Harold's, but it had never made sense.

He had stopped spying into Harold's private life, trying to discover who he really was, because he knew him now. Instinctively. The connection between them had changed some things.

Profound things.

Almost everything.

Reese hadn't really been aware of how deeply rooted the bond was, what it would mean to connect himself to the preternatural. He hadn't met too many hellhounds in his time as a soldier. Their bonds differed from each other and greatly from what he was experiencing with Finch. It might be because he had both a handler and a partner in Finch. None of the others had had both in one person. One had been married to a very nice woman, had three kids, and his handler was his bonded.

Or it might be because Finch wasn't even his own kind or simply human. He was a preternatural and his mind was the most fascinating place.

Or it might be something completely different.

Whatever it was, Reese didn't want to change a thing. He wanted the deeply rooted contentment, the calmness he felt with Finch, the ease of their relationship. John had never been this at peace with himself, the world, his life, everything, since the day he had to leave Jessica behind.

She was an old pain, a scar he would always carry with him, on his soul, never completely healed. But it was no longer this dark, sucking hole of agony. He could handle it now, could continue living.

He was no longer hollow inside, exhausted from life, nightmares tearing his soul apart.

The death wish was gone.

Reese smiled a little. He was actually clinging to life with such fierceness, it had surprised him.

Currently, John was in what Finch had once called his Arsenal of Death. John simply called it a weapons room, a place to store all the goodies he acquired from somewhere; or which Finch got him by request. The cipher never hesitated, but he did have a slightly misgiving crinkle around his eyes and lips. He didn't like guns, but he understood and accepted the necessity of them around the library rooms.

A feeling of unease washed over him while John was cleaning his Sig-Sauer. He stopped, almost froze, trying to uncover where it came from.

He was alone in the building. Finch was not here yet. There was nothing to alarm him, nothing to merit such unease.

Reese turned back to the Sig, but the sensation came back. Stronger this time. More intense. Strong enough to have him stop completely, breath catching a little, tension creeping through his frame. The hellhound rose to the surface, an almost overpowering sensation that had him fight for control, and his protective instincts screamed.

"Finch," he murmured.

He knew where this feeling came from. There was only one source, and while it should unsettle him that he even experienced it, something a lot stronger snarled softly, defensively.

Protectively.

It was a reaction that had grown around Finch within a few weeks of knowing the man. He hadn't really been aware of it that strongly at first, but then it had become clearer. It had culminated in Reese's hostage negotiations with The Machine over Finch's life against all the other irrelevant numbers. He had put everything on the line for the man who had saved him, the man he wouldn't leave to his fate.

The man without whom he wouldn't do this. He would never be the contingency, whatever The Machine had been programmed to believe or whatever Finch wanted him to be.

Now the assessment of the emotional flare was easy; straight-forward and simple.

Finch's emotions were never all over the place, but this was strong and harsh and self-flagellating. It hurt the other man as much as it disturbed Reese.

He reassembled the Sig, then pushed the ammunitions clip inside. The gun was smoothly slipped underneath his suit jacket, then Reese rose and walked quickly out of the room, down the corridor, heading for the exit.

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He didn't know why he had come here; again. He should stop; should stop making himself look and feel the pain, but it was that famous car wreck about to happen. He couldn't look away.

Finch had walked to Washington Square Park, standing behind the shrubbery and trees, behind the black, iron fence, watching the row of Greenwich Village houses opposite the park.

Bear was at his side, tongue lolling, ears pricked attentively, and he was waiting for any sign or command. He had obediently walked alongside the limping man, an impressive guardian.

It wasn't really longing Finch felt.

It was something else, something undefined.

He needed to make sure.

It had become part of his routine and it was so hard to break.

This was his past. At least a part of his past, linked to one of his many identities, and one of the moments in his life when he had been ready to go back and become the real Harold again. He had been ready to risk it all for a moment of happiness.

This past was dead; as dead as every past he had lived in. The person, this Harold, had died to keep himself alive, had reinvented himself once more, assumed yet another persona.

Harold Finch had been born.

And Harold Finch kept revisiting this place, this memory, because it was the hardest decision he ever had to make: die to keep her safe. Die to continue living. Erase yet another part of him; a part that had wanted someone in his life to be happy with.

Grace was home, probably painting, working on a new commission a well-paying client had placed with her. A client she knew nothing about, but who Harold knew very well.

People walked past him. Families, men or women with their dogs, their children, their partners. Some pushed a stroller, some talked on their phones.

Normal. Everything and everyone around him seemed so normal. Finch felt he stood out like a sore thumb, but no one looked at him twice. He was an ordinary guy, dressed in a suit, a light coat, the glasses giving him a bookish air. No, no one really gave him another look.

Harold felt someone approach, take a place at his side, slide into an empty spot he hadn't noticed that acutely before. It was something he had noticed lately, how the other presence was actually welcome, how the fact that he was no longer alone was a good change.

He had never been good with people. Nathan had been about the only one he had let close – until Grace. He wasn't a social animal. He wasn't a pack person. He liked solitude, the work with computers and programs and only himself for company. It had been enough for so long, but things had changed fast.

Everything had changed.

"Mr. Reese," he said softly.

"Finch," was the reply, tinged with warmth. "Enjoying a spring day?"

"It is rather nice outside," he replied neutrally.

The door of the house he had been covertly surveilling opened and a red-headed woman stepped out, wearing a light brown coat over blue jeans, carrying a painter's materials and chair. Finch watched her, feeling the old longing, but no longer as intensely as before. It was strangely muted, like acceptance had settled in where regret had resided before.

Grace Hendricks.

His past.

The Machine had chosen her as his partner and he had let himself be guided, had let himself be happy, carefree, fun-loving. Human.

Because of his own creation he had lost this humanity again. Because he had been careless, egotistical in a way, pushing Nathan away and keeping too many shields between them.

Why hadn't he listened back then? Why hadn't he let his old partner, his only friend, the only person to know who he really was, tell him more about what he was doing.

The irrelevant list.

Nathan had been possessed by it, had fought for people he hadn't even known, and he had saved lives. Harold hadn't been interested in any of it, and he had paid. With everything.

Now, three years after his loss, he was doing the very same thing Nathan had done: fight for the irrelevant numbers; saving lives.

A hand rested against Finch's back, warm and heavy and reassuring. It wasn't pushing, it wasn't demanding or possessive, it didn't stake a claim. It was just reminding him that John was there.

John Reese. His partner, His asset.

His present and hopefully his future.

"Why are you here?" Finch asked, not looking at the taller man.

"You called."

That had him stop abruptly. Reese compensated immediately, without running into him.

"I did no such thing."

The smile was patient, almost amused. "I sensed your distress, Harold. It was loud enough."

Finch knew he was staring, the shock coursing through him almost like a physical blow.

"I… I'm very sorry for that," he managed.

The pressure against his back increased a little, Reese leaning a little closer. "Don't. I'll always be here."

Finch's stomach clenched and he tried to breathe normally. How could a loyalty bond become so… intense? How could his emotional upheaval reach Reese and call him here? How?

"Harold, breathe."

He shot the hellhound a glare.

It was answered with a little smile.

They continued walking and Finch tried to digest the latest fact about their relationship. Reese was at his side, barely any room between them, his stoical silent self. Letting Finch think.

The cipher appreciated it. He needed to think, to get his brain back in order.

"Can you still feel me?" he asked after a moment.

"No," was the unruffled answer.

"So it was… a flare?"

"Most likely."

"Because of Grace," he murmured.

Reese didn't answer.

"I don't… I know I'm dead," Finch said softly. "But I can't stop protecting her."

"I understand."

Because he had done the same for Jessica. She had been dead, but he had taken revenge, had risked everything, had taken a life for hers.

Because hellhounds were natural protectors, guardians, fierce fighters.

The cipher glanced at him, head turning a little. "John…"

"I understand," Reese repeated firmly, meeting the emotion-filled eyes.

He leaned in briefly, brushing his lips over Finch's temple, a fleeting contact that was barely felt, then he chose distance again.

"Never doubt that I don't," he rumbled.

Harold tore himself away from watching the woman he had been ready to marry years ago, the woman who believed he was dead and gone and who hadn't gone on herself, the woman he tried to protect and who he sought out jobs for. He would always provide for her; it was his duty. Grace would always have a steady stream of income, enough to pay for a house that cost more rent a month than many people could actually afford as a freelance illustrator, and more than enough to have her live without lacking.

They walked silently back through the park, Reese a steady presence at his side.

"It shouldn't be so hard," Finch said after a while, eyes firmly ahead.

"Just because you understand the necessity doesn't mean your feelings have changed."

"But they have, Mr. Reese," was the quiet reply.

"Not for her."

"I feel I have to make sure she… she can live, that she has work, that there is money. I don't feel…" He stopped, knowing it was a lie.

"Harold."

He stopped and looked at his partner. Reese's eyes were filled with more than understanding, with so many emotions they seemed to flood with them. It was one of the things he had discovered quite early about his asset, about the man he had hired and who he had seen as a business venture: John Reese was very empathetic.

It was such a contrast to the cold-blooded, ruthless assassin he truly was. And it was even more in contrast to the instinctual creature he had been born as, though a hellhound looked rather tame to some of the other supernaturals out there.

Like James Bond.

Finch put a lid on those thoughts right away.

"I'm not going to leave," Reese now said, voice a quiet, low rumble. It was more than a promise. "And I could… sense what you feel sometimes already. When we're together. When you're close. I know and I understand."

He drew a shaky breath and continued walking again.

Connector. Q had once called John his connector. The man who would put everything back together, who would heal Finch's soul and who would be healed by his acceptance of the connection, too.

This was far more now.

This was so much more!

The connection was deeper than any surface bond. It was more than a loyalty bond. It was healing ancient scars, making them so much more aware of the other, and Harold was too weak, too comfortable with it, too content and needy, to fight it. He didn't want to fight any more. He didn't want to push away what he needed.

Here he was, talking about his fiancée with the man who had become his partner now; intimately. The man he was sleeping with, who he trusted implicitly. The man who took no offense at the presence of Grace Hendricks in Finch's life, who wasn't jealous or demanding he cut all ties. The man who had this endless patience.

"I don't want you to leave," he whispered, not looking at Reese.

He didn't want to look into those intense eyes; eyes that had promised death and destruction, eyes that had looked at him with emotions Finch was too afraid to name right now.

Reese didn't say anything, but Finch could almost hear the pleased rumble from deep within.

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They caught a cab and Reese gave the driver an address only a block down from his loft apartment.

Finch didn't object, simply shot his partner a brief look. Reese refused to comment his choice.

Finch also wasn't surprised when Reese was crowding close again when they were inside the spacious, airy loft that Harold had given John for his birthday. It had been an incredible gift at the time, though money meant nothing to Finch. He had wanted John happy; for once in his life. He had wanted him to have this, to show him that he meant more than a simply employee.

The place had meant everything to Reese.

It was his. It was where he returned to, where it was safe, where he could relax.

And it was completely free of electronic eyes or ears. Finch had made sure of that.

It was also a place where Harold had been quite often lately.

They rarely interacted intimately outside or while at work. The small show of closeness in the park had been the hellhound's reaction to the distress he had seen and felt from his partner. Having him so close now was a sign of shields dropping, of guards coming down, and Harold didn't fight it.

He shed his coat and hung it on the appropriate hook, then turned into a tall, dark wall of muscle that stopped him.

"Mr. Reese."

The empathetic blue eyes seemed to draw him in, reflecting so much it had him almost breathless. He had seen this often before, when they had lost a number, when John had had to kill to stay alive, to take a life he hadn't planned on ever taking. He had seen it when they had failed to protect Dr. Nelson and Reese had decided to relieve the man of his pain in the end.

He had never talked about it.

But Harold had known.

"Do we have a new number?"

"If we had, we wouldn't be here," he replied, putting a small amount of scolding into his words.

Reese twitched a smile. "Good. Did you have any plans?" The voice had dropped to that sensuous level again. That private, sensual one that touched Finch on a level few things had before.

Finch reflected the smile. "The usual updates to the data base, Mr. Reese. Maybe a routine diagnostic. I know you know that, too."

"I do."

"It's nothing particularly exciting. Not even for me."

"Good."

"Are you planning on simply looking at me the whole time?"

The blue eyes shimmered slightly. It could be a trick of the light, but Finch knew better. The silver was a clear indication of just how much John's guard was down. It was a testimony to their ease, to his state of mind.

"Nothing wrong with that." The voice was faintly raspy, almost too low to catch.

"It seems rather too stalkerish even for you."

Reese moved that last step closer, sliding a hand under Finch's suit jacket, over his waist coat, until it rested on the small of his back. Then his lips brushed over Harold's, soft and slow and as deadly in their aim and purpose as the whole man was.

"You know me, Harold," he murmured. "I see everything. Every little detail." He nuzzled against his temple. "And I can feel your response."

The kiss was soft, without demand, just nipping gently at his lips.

"I've never felt more balanced than now," John whispered, trailing the kiss down his jaw, gently biting against his neck without leaving a mark.

Harold shuddered. "Mr. Reese…"

Whatever he had wanted to say, and Harold wasn't even sure what it was, was silenced again, the kiss deeper this time, leaving him reeling.

"I want you," John said, voice low and rough.

Dear god…

It wasn't the first time, but it felt like it over and over again. Finch had never experienced closeness like this before; this intensely.

"You have me," he replied.

There seemed to be no rush to get past the kissing, the taller man trapping him effectively against the wall, surrounding him without making it seem like a trap at all. Harold let John explore, doing the same in turn.

Sometimes it felt like two teenagers testing the waters, trying out different things, as if they still wanted to see what the other liked. It was slow, it was intense, it was wonderful, and it was them.

No hurry.

A pace they were comfortable with, a pace that didn't tear at old scars or reopened barely scabbed wounds.

It wasn't just Harold any longer who needed to adjust to the changes around them; even John was trying to take deep breaths and understand what it was he had done with his loyalty bond; with wanting Finch so badly, so completely, that he had given up everything else.

Finch smiled at the soft whine he heard, barely there, coming from deep within his partner, and didn't flinch from the feeling of claws on deadly fingers brushing over his body.

"You have me," he repeated, voice rougher than he had expected. "Always," he added a bit shakily.

Reese response was almost his undoing as those talented fingers cupped him, squeezing gently, while the next kiss stole his breath.

"You never ask," Harold murmured when they parted for breath. "You leave the initiative up to me."

"Is that a problem?"

"You either presume I won't ever say no, Mr. Reese, or you fear rejection."

Reese smiled, open, warm, amused. "Rejection is part of every partnership."

He gazed at the taller man, took in the easy lines, the silent grace, the deadliness hidden under an expensive, dark ensemble and a handsome exterior.

"You don't always have to leave the final decision up to me," Finch said. "I'm an adult. I know how to say no:"

"Your pace, Harold," was the gentle reminder.

"Pushing helps sometimes, Mr. Reese. To get back on the right track, to continue a journey."

"I think we're already on the right track," was the rough reply.

Yes, maybe they were.

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Being together with John Reese had yet to lose its novelty, the shine, the feeling of amazement and wonder. Finch understood that there was a difference between the loyalty bond and their personal relationship, but it had started to mesh right from the beginning. It had always been there and the attraction had built slowly, simmering under the surface, and he had never dared to jump at the many opportunities that had presented themselves before.

Stroking over the warm skin, along old scars and those that had been added within the last two years, Finch let his fingers explore, let them trail over the hard muscles. He enjoyed the reactions he got to his ministrations, be it simple caresses or the more forward moves. Giving pleasure to John was… something wonderful.

And Finch was a quick study.

He might not have been with anyone since the explosion had taken his life in more ways than one, but he wasn't an innocent either. Harold had quickly learned what John liked, what he really enjoyed, what he preferred.

Blue eyes, the iris surrounded by a silver ring, gazed at him, lazy and pleased and with the shields down. There was a growing shimmer of more silver as Finch placed a kiss onto one shoulder, wishing he had more flexibility sometimes, then trailed his lips up the neck and finally to the mouth. John pushed himself up a little from his prone position, meeting the kiss, open-mouthed, hungry, with a hint of fang.

He was still rather passive, letting Finch play.

He liked playing.

It was an incredible sensation to feel this strong supernatural under his hands, his fingers, his lips. To feel the shift of muscle and sinews, the movement of long, powerful limbs. Finch could tell when the hellhound was straining to change shape, to let the more animalistic traits rise, but John had himself under such tight, perfect control, it wouldn't simply happen.

It was even more incredible to be allowed to be… himself. To be Harold. Not anyone else but Harold.

Lately they had gone further than before. Finch had allowed himself to let go of some of his wariness concerning their more physical interaction and had taken several leaps. Finch knew what he liked, wanted John's lips over his cock, wanted to feel the teasing scrape of teeth, the long, hard suction that never failed to bring him off. Reciprocating was a matter of courage and thinking around his limited mobility in some regards.

But they had found ways.

He had no words for what this was, between them, was barely able to express what he felt, but John felt it, too.

Soul-deep, intense, intimate beyond belief, and just them. He let it happen, wash over him in gentle waves as they lay together. Lazy movements, sloppy kisses, warm skin against warm skin. It didn't end in sex, both hovering at the fringes without the pressing need to reach completion.

It was nice.

Wonderful.

It was the first time for them again and again, able to experiment, to find the limits of their compromises, or go beyond.

Little steps.

John turned on his back, looking at him, eyes caught between supernatural and human. One hand came up, free of claws, sliding over Finch's shoulder, then curling around his neck to slowly pull him into a kiss.

Harold slipped a hand between them, rubbing over the straining erection.

Reese's eyes flared with want and need.

The cipher smiled, curling his fingers around the hard length, squeezing a little as he set a slow rhythm.

"You don't have to keep up the pretense, Mr. Reese," he said softly. "I know what you are."

Silver eyes flared and a groan escaped the hellhound. "Harold…"

He smiled. "Give me a moment," he murmured, slowly sliding down the naked length, far from smooth and limber, but also not too stiffly.

"Harold," John started, then bit his lower lip as Finch licked over his prize.

Harold felt rather smug as claws popped through the mattress.

Yes, little steps. And right now, it was a step in the right direction.

tbc...


	4. Chapter 4

Thank you for your patience! This is not an abandoned fic. I would never post anything I won't finish, even if I need a week between updates! I'm also not yet done with this series :P

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The Macivraes lived a few miles outside of town, almost at the bay. It was an old farm house, passed down from generation to generation, and every new generation had added to what had once been a very small family home. Just a kitchen with an open fire, a tiny bedroom, an equally tiny room for possible children, and an attic. The very first Macivraes to live here had probably sheltered their lifestock in here throughout winter, using the warmth of the animals to keep warm themselves.

Today the original farm house had been integrated into a new home that was several times its original size, still had an open fire place, but also central heating, running water, and satellite TV.

Q had looked around, impressed, trying not to give in to the temptation to snoop technopathically. Skyfall wasn't far from here. If one squinted, it was a dot in the distance.

It was where James's eyes had gone almost automatically, tension lines around his mouth and eyes. Q hadn't called him on it, had simply left him to his musings as Bond and Ewan Macivrae started talking about this and that.

Q looked out over the landscape, mug of steaming hot tea in hand, enjoying the fresh air, the smell of rain in the distance, the sharp, nipping wind out here, despite the fact that it was early summer. At least according to the calendar. The hills were dotted with more green, interspersed by the white spots that told of sheep grazing, the occasional black one among them. The clouds were riding high in the sky, blue leaking through here or there.

The waves coming in smelled of salt and algae, their currents strong and dangerous. The bay wasn't a place to sunbathe or swim; it was wild and untamed, like so many places up here.

Q liked it.

He had been to Skyfall, had seen the rough beauty paired with the desolation, the loneliness that didn't feel depressing to him at all. He had also witnessed the remnants of Bond's old home and the jagged teeth of the old, burned out lodge, had been a reminder of the tragedy that had happened there over the past three decades.

Still, he enjoyed this place more than his partner did. He, the computer geek, the scientist and engineer, the man who spent most of his time cooped up in front of dozens of screens, calling information from all over the world.

Maybe it was the quiet.

Out here, there was little that attacked his technopathic mind. Out here he could lower his shields without the danger of an overload. It was a place where unanchored technopaths might seek refuge. To his knowledge, he was the only functional one of those known to the world. The others were hiding in such remote places like the Scottish northernmost areas.

"Deep thoughts."

He turned and glanced at the woman at his side, smiling a little. "Not really. It's… peaceful."

Moira tilted her head a little. "Not many enjoy such peace."

"You mean those who come from the cities, like me and James."

She smiled. "Yes. He isn't happy here."

"Bad memories."

The hecate nodded. "I know his family history. The Bonds were known throughout the area, were friends to the clans that shared their land with them. Adam was one of the last to uphold treaties, the alliances, knew what was happening around him and accepted the supernatural. He wasn't like us, but he was open-minded. No one knew or realized his son was preternatural."

"Adam Bond never did either. And James didn't until he first died," Q said bluntly.

She silently sipped at her own tea. "He is a very powerful soul, Kieran. Very. He feels like a shape-changer, all that energy so tightly wound through his very core. It's fused into him like I have never seen before. Every cell, every fraction of his soul… Nuckelavee are strong supernaturals and I know how they feel. It's nothing that can be met by a werewolf or windiga." At Q's quizzical look, she added, "You might know them as wendigo."

"Ah."

"Very shy and very much forest bound. Territorial and ferocious when challenged. Few live among humans because of that. And they are very much extinct since they also never leave their territory, which is the Appalachian region."

"Also the source of many nightmarish tales."

She shrugged. "I've only ever met one when I was very young. Their energy is amazing, all-encompassing, wild, but your partner's exceeds even that."

She looked almost frightened by it. Q didn't really want to label her expression, so he simply thought of it as 'disturbed'.

"A phoenix draws energy for its resurrection. It has to come from somewhere," he said placidly.

"From within him, Kieran. And that core is hell to be close to." Moira looked almost sheepish, mixed with apologetic. "It might be the source of our… mutual dislike. My reactions to him are instinctive. His reaction to my words was the same."

"I believe you are the only one to ever hit all of his buttons right from the start," Q told her, amusement tingeing his voice. "I've never seen him this riled up, trying to maintain control, within five minutes of meeting someone."

"You weren't there for the first round," she said dryly.

"I have a very good idea what it might have been like."

The waves crashed loudly against the beach, the large pebbles making the water almost sing as it retreated to gather its forces for the next rush. Q emptied his cup, but he felt no inclination to walk back to the house. James and Ewan were back there, talking or whatever they were doing. Q wanted some more time with Moira.

"You don't seem to suffer any ill effects from having such a nightmarish, hungering presence bound to you. I would have thought him to be an overwhelming, all-consuming monster. When he told us that he is counter-balanced, that he had found someone to keep him from stepping over the edge, I couldn't imagine this person to remain sane."

No, Moira Macivrae wasn't someone to beat around the bush or choose her words.

"Yet here you are," she added, sounding slightly amused.

"Yes, here I am." He met the green eyes evenly. "The connection between us wouldn't have worked if we weren't compatible. The phoenix can't claim an unwilling mate and anchor. Nor would I be able to use him as my anchor to stay sane without a perfect connection. It can't overwhelm me, consume me, because I am needed. I'm not there to be conquered. I'm there to help. It's a mutual link, giving both of us what we need without destroying the other, without crippling either side. We're equal partners, Moira."

"I seriously doubted that when he told Ewan and myself who and what he was, why he had to get back to you." She studied him for a heartbeat. "Not any more. I understand a little about bonds, Kieran. It's what sustains nuckelavee and hecate alike. We live in a strange kind of symbiosis, built on compatibility. Neither could claim the other without that compatibility and the right emotions. It seems Nature has seen to it that a supernatural creature that can only be born as a male and a preternatural creature that can only be born as a female have the ability to procreate and insure the survival of both species since the beginning of Time."

"What James and I have isn't for procreation."

She laughed. "No, it isn't. It's also not because he's a phoenix and you are a technopath. I understand that now. You simply fit. Hard to understand, difficult to digest, but I sense the result. Your connection is… it's nothing I've ever seen within my kind's."

"There have been… events… that changed what we had started out with," Q said carefully.

"Which you can't talk about," Moira stated.

"Not in detail."

"Because of what you do for a living."

He nodded. "What I can tell you is that he died, was burned after death and left in a very bad state, and he came back. He regenerated with a massive amount of energy – which I felt."

She sucked air through her teeth, green eyes wide with surprise.

"That," the hecate said slowly, "would explain his reaction to what happened to you while Mr. Bond was here."

"Most likely. There is no reference material for me to search through. Little is known about the phoenix to begin with and those scraps are by now fast outdated."

She stared out over the sea. "Everything starts at some point. Sometimes you have to be the first."

Q chuckled. "I'd prefer not to be. I have quite enough on my hands without surprises around every bend."

"I can't help you, Kieran, because out here a phoenix never existed before. We have our own folk tales about some of the more exotic and rare variations of the preter- and supernatural world. As an evolutionary biologist I've never read much about Mr. Bond's abilities either. I only know what I feel and it's very dark, violent, out for blood, and never quiet." Her eyes met his and she quirked a smile. "Except around you. You calm that horrifying thing in his soul. Easily. Without touch, without a word."

Q blinked, slightly stunned.

"Some might say it's on a leash, but not me. Nothing this primordial can ever be shackled or leashed or tamed. It is a creature that has an immense power and consumes itself in the end, taking the human soul with it. It terrifies me to think of what he is capable of, seeing how strong he is, how terrible, how dark. It terrifies me even more to know how long he survived, pulling himself back from the inevitable brink, until he met you. It speaks of a strength that was already inhuman and now…?"

She was scared of Bond, Q realized. She could see the phoenix, could imagine what it would be like unshielded, what Q had so often met and faced and never backed away from. He would never be able to describe to anyone what it was like, the abyss, the vortex, the fire and the ice and force of nature that was this creature. All hidden under the deceptively fragile human shell.

It wasn't scary. It had never been scary. He faced the vortex, knowing it would never harm him. He had felt the claws in his soul, had felt it claim him, and there had never been any pain or discomfort.

"You're a very strong man, Kieran," Moira added, smiling. "To look at this and not run screaming."

"We matched," he reminded her. "We were psychically linked before we even realized it. And it wasn't without a fight from either side. I have never been afraid of him. I never felt fear or terror, and I looked at the phoenix without its shields. It's… mine," he stumbled over the last word.

Her smile was gentle, knowing. "He's yours," she agreed. And the physical attraction helps." Laughter edged into her voice.

Q chuckled. "Yes. Immensely."

She looked over her shoulder and Q followed her lead. He found the familiar shape of his partner silhouetted against the hills.

"He needs you," Moira said softly.

"It's mutual."

She smiled, still soft, so very unlike the challenging air she had around Bond, something that was an automatic reaction to his approach to her.

Instincts, Q mused. Sometimes they were a pain in the butt.

Moira took her leave, heading back to the house, as Bond walked over to them, neither really looking at the other. Q wanted to laugh out loud at the bristling phoenix.

"It's like watching a kindergarten fight over who gets to play with the favorite toy," he teased his partner.

The wintery eyes showed an edge of fury. Bond was trying to keep himself under control, but the possessive notion was there.

"You know she isn't competition nor an enemy, but you still react to her. She does just the same," Q went on. "Hecate aren't exactly a phoenix's best friend."

"I believe it's only this one," he growled, sounding more intense than Q would have thought.

There hadn't even been a physical confrontation, just Moira spending some time with Q, then walking past him. It wasn't jealousy, the technopath decided. It was something very much different. Something grating on the phoenix's nerves, fraying his control at the edges, rubbing him raw.

He felt the silky darkness of the phoenix at the edge of his mind. It was more pronounced than before.

Yes, he reacted to her. Badly.

"Play nice, James."

Bond stood next to him, face slipping back into a neutral mask, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. The tension wasn't abating, though. He was thrumming with it.

"She… rubs me the wrong way," he finally said, voice low and gritty.

Q nodded. "Duly noted. Right from the start, actually. Think of it as a training exercise."

It got him a dark look.

"You have to control your reactions, 007. She's not the only hecate in the world and unless we can exclude the preternatural status as the sole trigger, you will be very much vulnerable. Like an exposed nerve."

"Work with the pain," he growled. "Learn to control it."

"Exactly. It's an exercise in control."

Bond shot him a little smirk. "So you won't agree to leaving right away?" he teased.

"No," was the firm answer and Q's brows lowered into an annoyed frown. "We came here for a reason and I doubt you're done yet. When is the meet and greet?"

"Clan dinner tonight."

Q suddenly felt the light switch clicking on. "And nuckelavee are mostly paired with hecate. Ah. That will be interesting indeed."

"It will be a bloody nightmare."

"You are a bloody nightmare, Bond. They are perfectly friendly hosts and the clan you leased your considerable plot of land to."

The Double-Oh only raised his brows, then started to walk away, along the edge of the cliff that led to the bay, away from the house. Q shook his head.

"Walk it off," he sighed. "I'll see what our hosts have planned."

Bond didn't respond, though Q was sure he had heard him. He went back to the house, smiling to himself.

It would be a very interesting weekend for sure.

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The night had been pleasant, the morning even more so. Reese was a sensual man, a very tactile person, and he liked just being close. Finch didn't mind the closeness. John enjoyed Harold touching him, caressing him, hands on his skin without really trying to arouse.

Just touch.

And he liked to reciprocate.

It was such a contradiction to the violence this man lived and breathed, how he enjoyed a fight, how he thrived in battle. Finch usually only heard the confrontations, rarely saw them, but the few times he had witnessed John Reese in action, he had seen the enjoyment. He had seen the light in those blue eyes change, the smile on his lips, cold and calculating, tinged with the thrill he experienced. He had seen the true nature of the hellhound as a fighter, as a warrior, and always as a protector.

That was the man he shared close quarters with.

That was the man he was attracted to, who he trusted, who he had become intimate with.

Lying together, dozing, doing nothing but enjoy the closeness, was new to Finch. He had been with Grace, had enjoyed her soft curves and warm touch. John was different. Hard muscle, angles, sinewy grace and that quiet aura of deadliness that never left him.

Reese liked running his fingers over the scars on Finch's back, massage the sometimes cramped muscles on his hip, the weight of his palms hot and heavy against the over-exerted muscle tissue. Finch's eyes closed when the touch became more, became deeper, harder, like a massage, digging into the area and drawing a breathy moan of relief mixed with pain.

"Okay?" John murmured.

"Yes," he managed.

It was okay. It helped, even if the discomfort was there, but it was manageable. After a while it became less. The heat of blood flowing through the tissue, the relentless manipulation of the deadly fingers, had him melt into the mattress, letting John work.

"Good?" Reese asked.

"Very," he moaned, words no longer his strong point.

It got Finch a chuckle and he opened his eyes – he hadn't been aware of closing them – and looked into the tanned face, blue eyes alight with laughter, the lips pulled into a wide, happy smile.

It was a smile he saw not too often; mostly only when they were alone.

"I think you missed your calling, Mr. Reese," Finch said with a sigh.

"I think I'm right where I have to be, doing what needs to be done."

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It had been more than an interesting dinner invitation. It had been downright entertaining and exhausting in one. Not everyone they met was a nuckelavee or a hecate. There were a lot of human family members. The preternatural gene didn't always take, which was normal, and sometimes a purely human couple had a preternatural child as well.

No different than anywhere else.

It was strangely reassuring.

The whole meet and greet had also told Q that Bond didn't react to every hecate the way he did to Moira Macivrae. They had met enough to be certain.

It was Moira, clear and simple.

Sienna, the hecate married to Ewan's brother Warren, had told Q that Moira was a rather strong elementary, that her family had been of this land since the beginning of Time. Q couldn't really draw a date from that, but he suspected it meant that the first people coming to Scotland had been Moira's ancestors. She was strongly linked to the earth, more so than most hecate present, and that made her more receptive to the violently dark energy harbored in his agent's soul.

Sienna had been fascinated by the energy, but she hadn't caused James to glare at her. He had been his pleasant, charming self.

With everyone.

Except Moira.

"No offense taken," she had told the technopath, sounding amused. "It's mutual, so I suspect that's payback."

Well, Q had learned a lot from meeting the Scottish preter- and supernaturals. He wasn't inclined to extend his note taking to nuckelavee and hecate, though. He had enough on his hands with his phoenix.

Even if the nuckelavee fascinated him. Shape-changers in general were a fascinating topic, but he wasn't a biologist. His field of work was clearly defined by his own abilities and he wasn't trying to expand.

"Are you sure he's a preternatural?" Eni, an older hecate asked, eyeing Bond suspiciously. He was talking to Seamus, if Q recalled correctly.

Seamus was human, but his daughter Siobhan was a hecate, even if she was only five, he had told Q. They manifested early, almost right from birth, and they were brought up learning how to control what they were by those in the family with the same preternatural abilities.

Eni looked like seventy and was going on eighty-eight, as she had told him proudly. Her husband had died almost forty years ago, killed by a hunter. Q hadn't believed it possible this day and age that humans still chased after supernaturals to kill what they perceived were monsters.

"There are monsters everywhere," she had told him. "Those who don't understand that Life and Nature comes in different shades. They see only what they want, what they perceive as normal. Nothing is normal. You, me, your friend over there. No human is normal. Everyone is a different shade. You can't eradicate prejudice, only try to survive it."

Harsh words. And she had survived, raised three children, two of them human, and she had persevered.

"Yes, I am sure," the technopath now said, still polite.

She pursed her lips. "The way Moira tells it, he might just make a shift."

"A preternatural can't become a supernatural. Shape-changers are born, not… well, they don't evolve out of a preternatural."

She smiled toothily. "He might just be the first. He's one heck of an energy vortex, my dear. But I think you know that." And then she winked.

Q stared at her, blinking behind his glasses. "I might," he finally said slowly.

Eni laughed. "Oh, you remind me so much of my grandson. You're such a lovely boy. If you hadn't been bonded already, I'd make it my work to get you together. He can call himself lucky you were his counter-balance."

Q blinked again, pushing his glasses up his nose as if they could shield him from her teasing eyes.

"I'd say I am," Bond rumbled, stepping up behind Q, holding a glass of something alcoholic.

"You should be," Q replied haughtily, glancing at the blond. "I am a catch."

Bond's eyes lit up with amusement and Eni's smile was telling.

"I might not be as receptive to your dark energy as Moira seems to be, but I can tell when something's good. And you are good," she told them. "Balance can't be forced. It's gained. There's nothing wrong with you, Mr. Bond. You are what you are because that's what's needed."

With that she ambled off and Q glanced at his partner, who was watching the elderly woman with a mild frown.

"Lucky?" he queried.

The pale blue eyes turned to look at him. "Very," was the soft reply. "I never thanked M for anything. I never wanted to thank her for anything. This is the only thing she ever pushed on me that I would thank her for."

Q was silent, aware of the weight of those words. "She knew," he finally said.

"I hope so."

They didn't touch, didn't sway closer together, but the connection between them thrummed with the shared grief of loss and regret. Bond finally gave him a little nod and walked outside, needing to clear his head, needing the cold air to chase away another kind of darkness.

Q let him.

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They declined Ewan's invitation to spend the night at the Macivrae home instead of the hotel. It was already way past midnight and it would take an hour to reach the hotel because the unlit roads were treacherous, but Bond wouldn't stay, aside from another snow front keeping them trapped out here.

Ewan understood.

Q felt a little fuzzy around the edges, even though he hadn't drunk anything other than water. Despite the offer of a beer and Bond's low, teasing remark that he was driving, Q adhered to what he had done all his life: no alcohol outside his safety zone. Loss of inhibition due to any kind of drug was the worst for a technopath.

He was anchored, yes, but he wasn't anywhere close to where he felt safe. Out here, in the Highlands, there was hardly any technology for him to get lost in, but he also didn't want to get drunk, slip up in his control, and end up falling into the emissions of the satellite controller box. That would be rather embarrassing.

So, no, thank you, on the offer for an overnight stay.

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Q was rather thankful for the fact that they were currently the only guests in the hotel and located under the roof in the new side wing. Bond's iron control cracked just a little when they were home.

Q could almost feel the dark bird rise within Bond's soul, felt it latch onto the psychic link, hungering, needing, consuming what got in its way. He simply held against it, guided the encounter, let James burn off the excess energy and sate his needs.

It was almost obscenely pleasurable and arousing to have the Double-Oh push him onto the bed and then proceed to show Q that every single part of him was a deadly weapon. That mouth, that tongue, really needed a license all of its own. Q didn't fight the words of encouragement, simply spread his legs and enjoyed it. It was almost too much to bear, to have that talented mouth and those strong fingers work him relentless. Bond was fixated on having him come and come hard.

He did.

With a groan of relief that was almost a sob, hands digging into the mattress, pushing into the hot mouth and feeling teeth scrape lightly over his cock.

Q looked into the bright blue eyes, brighter than normal, James' lips red and glistening, the expression still hungry. The technopath wasn't a martyr; far from it. He wasn't the one to lay back and think of England. Q wasn't meek or shy or weak. He could make himself known and understood, even against a dominant partner like James Bond, and there had never been anything but consensual encounters, even if some had been quite… intense.

He liked intense.

He enjoyed it, actually.

And sometimes Q wanted nothing more than to look into those wintery eyes, so pale and inhuman, and have James let go completely. It was a sight to behold, something thrilling and wonderful, something that resonated within him, had him soar, had him come so hard it was impossible to come down for a while.

Like right now.

He wanted Bond. It was his own hunger, not the least comparable to what the phoenix projected.

Q curled a hand around the muscular neck, pulled his partner into a long, intense kiss that was as dirty as the prior encounter had been, and he felt the hard evidence of James' hunger against his hip. He wrapped his other hand around that hardness, squeezing playfully.

It got him a growl, teeth nipping at his lips, at his chin, the wintery eyes inhuman in their expression.

Q bent a leg and Bond slotted himself more comfortably against the younger man, trailing biting kisses along the long, pale neck. He was straining for release, and still he refused to give in completely.

"James," Q murmured, his own teeth on Bond's ear lobe. "Please."

Another growl, but this time it sounded more like a groan.

The cracks were there to see, the control all but gone. The hecate had had that effect, her mere presence evoking a violent response that Bond was trying to work off. The energy inside him, the phoenix, the darkness, was roiling like a living thing, spoiling for a fight, needing release.

Q was very willing to channel that energy into a more pleasurable outcome.

James slid into him in one long, hard stroke, having the technopath hiss. There was no pain, no fear, just the pleasure, the fullness. Even this close to losing himself, Bond was still a man of finesse, someone well-versed in the arts, someone who took pleasure and gave it. He was known for it throughout MI6 and on a mission he used his body like a weapon.

Q had never felt jealousy, just appreciation of that perfectly honed weapon, and he moved with him, pushed back, fingers digging into the hard muscles, encouraging, wanting more.

For all his hunger and need, Bond had stamina and he pushed Q into almost getting completely hard once more. The technopath whimpered at the relentless pace, the unerring way James hit the pleasure center with each push, and he felt loose and raw and oversensitive and it was too much and not enough and too soon and not soon enough.

His mind fell into that feverish haze he knew so well, that wantneedlust state. James' fingers were curled around his cock, playing him so perfectly, getting him to rise, with nothing left to spill, and when the climax hit him, Q's whimper was almost like a release of its own. He had little left to give, but the incessant slide, the pressure, the hard form pushing against him, had him want more while simultaneously cursing the other man for his teasing play.

"James," he groaned, batting at the fingers around him.

Bond slanted his mouth over Q's, kissing him hard, pulling him closer.

Q shuddered in pleasure, then groaned when Bond ran his fingers over the wet hole, playfully teasing.

The maddening fingers moved to trace the scar on Q's abdomen. The gunshot wound, healed but never forgotten. Bond's fingers brushed over it, then his hand rested flat and heavy against it. Warmth seemed to seep into Q's skin.

"Sorry," the Double-Oh murmured against the skin of his shoulder.

There was half an apology in there. Not because of what had just happened but because of what had happened a few hours ago at the Macivrae home.

Q ran blunt nails over the hot skin. "We really need to work on your reaction to a strong hecate," he muttered.

"Nothing to work on."

"Right."

Pale blue eyes opened and glared at him, narrow and with a silver sheen to them.

"You actively avoided being in the same room with Mrs. Macivrae in the end," Q pointed out. "You'd leave the country if you could."

"I can control my reactions!" the phoenix snapped, trying to push away.

Q wrapped a strong hand around Bond's neck, meeting the furious eyes calmly.

"Training, 007. Simple training. Exposure. Building up shields, a tolerance"

Bond continued to glare, a muscle in his jaw twitching a little.

"James," he implored. "She is a weakness. Her abilities clash with your energy. The phoenix is set off by her personality, her existence. You can't do anything about what you are, but you can work on reining in your emotions. You're good at that, no matter the circumstances, when you're on a mission. This is a mission."

Bond closed his eyes, exhaling sharply, then settled back down. "Training," he muttered.

"I'm not saying we'll expose you to Moira again and again, but when we meet her, shield. Control what you are."

He snorted.

"You're an agent with a license to kill, 007. A senior agent with years of experience under your belt. You are adaptable, and while there is this saying about old dogs, I resent that."

"The old or the dog?"

He chuckled. "Both."

Bond lightly stroked over his ribs, caressing him without trying to arouse.

"It's like an allergic reaction," he muttered.

Q was silent, carding his fingers through the blond strands. "We'll manage."

"I've never met another person I reacted this… badly to before."

"Hopefully she is the only one."

He chuckled. "I bloody well hope so, too."

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They fell asleep not much later, still wrapped up with each other, and Q didn't mind a clingy phoenix. Not at all.

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"So The Machine gave Q everything."

Finch drummed his fingers against the table top, then caught himself. "Yes."

"Do you trust him?"

He looked up, meeting the sedate, even gaze. Reese watched him patiently. He was dressed all in black today, pants and dress shirt, and it was mildly distracting. Finch had seen him in all states of dress and undress, but this was… well, it was… He pushed the thoughts away.

"It trusts him," the cipher only said.

"Do _you_ trust him, Harold?"

He was silent, mulling the question over in his head. Did he trust the quartermaster of the MI6? Did he trust a technopath who could easily hack whatever he wanted, seek what he wanted to find, and simply take what he felt he wanted to know? Did he trust a preternatural who had been home to his program; the very same program who had overwhelmed the technopath's defenses and just taken what it wanted?

Did he?

"Yes," Harold said slowly, and it was the truth.

He trusted Q. He would even trust James Bond to a degree, but he knew very little of the man. He didn't know everything about Q either, but there was a kinship, something that connected them.

"The Machine made a decision based on its experiences, the survival instinct deep within its core programming, and it chose Q. I trust him," he explained.

Reese nodded his acceptance.

"He wouldn't gain anything from making my… location and new identity… well, identities, known to the authorities."

The hellhound raised an eyebrow.

"The Machine is its own master, Mr. Reese," Finch said sternly. "He can't ever hope to acquire control over it."

"He is a technopath."

"Not a very good one."

Reese chuckled, low and soft and knowing.

Finch closed his eyes, calming himself. He knew just how good Q was, which was worlds better than Finch was as a cipher, and if the younger man wanted to, he would gain entry, find a way to possess what Finch had set free.

He felt the breath of a presence behind him, the ghost of a touch over his shoulders and neck.

"You trust him," John murmured.

The voice was rough, slightly jagged at the edge, and slightly more sensual than before.

"You trust him and I agree. Relax."

"He knows about your file, too."

"I don't care, Harold."

Because there was nothing in there of importance; not anymore.

Strong fingers caressed his neck, slid over the collar-covered scar. It was calming. It had always been calming, ever since John had started it. A simple touch, to a vulnerable spot. An old injury. And Finch trusted Reese never to hurt him.

"I think it's time to really trust what you created and gave life."

"I never…" he started to protest, but the smile silenced him. "Maybe," Finch amended.

Reese stepped back, breaking contact. Finch looked at him.

"We have a new number," the ex-CIA operative stated.

"Yes, we do."

"Back to work then."

Finch twitched a smile. "Back to work."

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The day had started out with a mild drizzle. More of a fog coming down to cling to the skin, the hair, the clothes. The clouds hung low, obscuring the mountains, and somewhere in the distance the sound of sheep was like a beacon for the lost.

James Bond wasn't lost. Dressed in runner's clothes, wearing fingerless gloves and a scarf wrapped around his neck, he was running. The path he had taken from town was narrow, more like a deer trail, most likely used by the occasional hiker or mountain biker, and it went past the edge of town and toward the hills in easy rises and falls.

Bond had woken early, with the first light barely filtering through the drawn blinds, and he had slipped silently out of bed to run. Q had still been fast asleep.

The phoenix had felt restless; still restless. There was too much energy inside him, accumulated over the past hours and not all of it had been dispersed with the help of his partner. It wasn't the resurrection energy he had felt churning through him before. It was different, like something that wanted out and attack and maim and kill. It was something that had trickled in slowly throughout yesterday, now close to overflowing, and it had been triggered by Moira Macivrae's simple presence.

The phoenix reacted to her and not in a good way. It was clear to Bond that the woman was doing nothing at all, that she was simply there, and that her presence was enough. She wasn't trying to rile him up; it just happened.

Feet pounding over the damp ground, his thoughts flowed everywhere. It was a monotonous way of working out, without much thought, and his mind was free to roam everywhere else. He wasn't really in a fugue state or zoning out. He was very much aware of his surroundings, but his mind was turning over problems, working through yesterday's events, and he knew that Q had been right: he needed to train.

In all his years he had never encountered a preter- or supernatural who had affected him like that.

It was a weakness.

Being with Q had tired him out last night, but he had felt like the world's greatest arse afterwards. Sex was one thing; last night had been close to just being a hard fuck and nothing more. Q hadn't complained and he knew the technopath was very well able to say no, to push Bond away, and he wouldn't just lie there and take it if he didn't want to.

Still, that sour feeling hadn't abated.

Running was tiring him out, too. An hour or two and he would be back to normal.

He hoped.

There was a sound not far into the distance and Bond's eyes narrowed as he kept his pace, never faltering. It hadn't sounded mechanical, more like an animal.

But it wasn't.

At least not in the conventional way.

"Ewan," he greeted the large nuckelavee who trotted out of the fog.

James had to hand it to the legend: it really made the supernatural beings look like NightMares when you didn't expect such an alien looking creature to come out of the foggy drizzle. The black hide was glistening with water and the unnaturally textured skin appeared more like skinless muscle and sinews. Fairy tales and children's horror stories were born that way. Add to that the bumps and ridges, the white, large eyes, and the skeletal sleekness, it all made up a monster instead of a shape-shifter.

Nostrils blew wide. "James. I thought I had seen you leave." Ewan's voice was gravelly and deep.

The supernatural fell in step beside him, easily matching Bond's gait. He wasn't really challenged by the pace and Bond knew four legs could outrun him any day. He was already heading back toward the town, but it would take another forty minutes to reach the hotel.

"Needed the workout."

"Energy," the other agreed, milky eyes watching him carefully.

Bond's lips pulled into a dark smile. "Kinda. You?"

The nuckelavee just snorted. "Restlessness. Sometimes you just get the need to shift and run." He flicked an ear. "And then I met you."

The Double-Oh stopped on a small hill overlooking the town not far away. His face was wet from sweat and the drizzle, his hair spiky, the clothes damp. He wasn't really breathing all that hard. It was a good sign; he was in perfect shape.

"I have to train my control," he finally said, glancing at the NightMare beside him. "No offense to your wife, but it feels like I'm… touching a live wire."

"She says the same about you."

"Polar opposites. And we don't really attract each other. That's why I need to work on this. Exposure."

Ewan gave him a dubious look; as far as Bond could tell that it was dubious. The range of discernible, human expressions on the alien face was limited.

"She was always a very… sensitive hecate. It's a curse and a blessing in one. She is one of those very few, very talented elementaries who can sense the shift of nature around us, who can manipulate the ground we stand on if she wants to, but the curse is the backwash. I know she tried it a few times in her youth and it ended badly. Every ability comes with a price."

Bond gave him a neutral look. Yes, he knew about prices and payment.

"So she can feel the shifts in me," he finally stated.

"Moira said she feels riled up around you, like something is trying to push her out of balance. She was pretty upset for the rest of the evening, but she isn't prone to… blowing things up. She is an elementary, so her powers flow with the land. She's got a very good grip on them. Upsetting her won't end in a thunder storm or snow piling on our front door."

Bond chuckled. "Good to know. I'd hate to explain to my partner why I was struck by lightning."

It got him a low rumble that had to be laughter. "You're in no danger there. But I'd understand if you want to cut your visit short."

Bond shook his head. "No."

The pointed ears flicked a little. "It's really all up to you."

"I can deal with it. I have to deal with it. Kieran was right that I might run into another hecate one day, who will pose the same problem. I can't simply lose it because of a little discomfort."

"Not in your line of work," the other agreed.

He started to slowly walk toward the town, Ewan following. The nuckelavee, for all his size and mass, walked almost noiselessly.

"No."

"Will you visit Kincade before you leave?"

"I planned to."

"You should tell him."

Bond shot him a look, brows raised.

"About what you are."

He was silent, just walking. Ewan kept his own silence.

"Why?" James finally asked.

"He isn't going to judge you. He is your friend. He was ready to die when he was by your side at Skyfall."

The Double-Oh stopped and turned, looking at the NightMare towering slightly over him. Ewan returned his gaze calmly. The milky eyes gave nothing away.

Finally he gave a little nod and continued his way to the town. Ewan accompanied him until they reached the first house, then he said his good-byes. They would see each other later, for lunch, for some more talking, and Bond knew it would be good for him. For building a resistance or at least a tolerance to the hecate.

tbc...


	5. Chapter 5

When Q woke the next morning, Bond was already gone. He didn't worry, nor did he wonder. He knew his partner was prone to running when he was trying to work through a problem, and out here he had a lot of running ground. Not that the area was perfect; far from it. James would have to keep to the roads, but it was quiet and almost deserted out here at this time in the morning.

Q showered, shaved and dressed in jeans and a sweater, then headed for breakfast. Bond came from his run just as he buttered his first slice of toast.

The agent looked slightly breathless, in bad need of a shower, but more balanced and a lot calmer than last night. The energy had burned off.

Q felt a faint smile tugging at his lips, then returned to his breakfast.

James was down, hair still wet, ten minutes later, still glowing. And hungry.

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It didn't surprise Q that they stopped by the chapel at Skyfall on their way out to the Macivraes again. He also wasn't surprised that Bond walked up to the graves of his family, all the generations before him, briefly stopping at the headstone with his parents' names on it, then he entered the old chapel.

Q followed a few steps behind.

He hadn't been inside the last time. He hadn't even been up here the last time. They had been down at the burned out shell of the lodge and this old building had been nothing but a spot in the distance.

Looking around the tiny room, the rough stone brittle in places, the hand hewn, wooden benches still sturdy enough to support the weight of those who might come here to pray, he expelled a breath he hadn't been aware of holding.

Bond stood at the front, gazing at a spot on the ground, then his eyes were on Q.

Dark, emotions whirling inside, so very intense that it should scare the technopath. Instead he held the turmoiled eyes, a rock in the wild sea, holding his own.

They had talked about M, about what she had done for them, and it had scratched at old scars. But unlike maybe a year ago the memories hadn't opened them again. It was an ache that wouldn't go away, this failure to protect their boss, the woman who had made James Bond into 007, who had seen the potential and had shaped him. She had used methods Q could hardly approve of, but the end had justified the means.

She had seen the whole picture. Or at least had had the imagination to see it.

And she had seen them.

Bond turned away from the dark spot on the dusty floor. His arms came around Q, holding him, pressing his lips against the younger man's temple. He exhaled shakily, the tension thrumming through him.

"Ready?" Q whispered.

"Never more so."

Bond was the first to leave the chapel and Q followed after a final look. He stopped at the Bonds' grave, smiling briefly, then he followed the Double-Oh back to their car.

When he looked past the ruin that had been the Skyfall lodge, Q was startled to see two horse-shaped forms coming closer. Nuckelavee, he thought, feeling a little breathless.

They thundered past the parked car, looking as otherworldly as they were majestic, and he saw Bond smile. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, no one saw them unless they drove to this place on purpose, and it was exhilarating to just watch.

"Do you ride?"

Q whirled around, startled, about to yell, when he met the milky white eyes of another nuckelavee.

Taller than any horse he had ever seen, right out of a nightmare, and looking rather amused, if he was one to interpret the expression.

"Ah, no," he managed.

"A shame. I would invite you for a run."

"I also don't shape-change," Q pointed out.

The rumble had to be laughter. "You are our guests. I would give you a lift to Ewan's home. I can leave the kids to run on their own. They are simply stretching their legs, getting reacquainted with the land after spending so much time in the city."

Q watched the two nuckelavee, who were by now almost at the shores of the bay.

"My son Andrew and my daughter Emma. Twins," the nuckelavee behind him explained. "They study in Edinburgh. It's tiring to be only one shape when you are this young. You lose focus. You need to be yourself. This is where we can give them this freedom."

"Oh."

Bond had tracked back to him, nodding at the supernatural behind him. "Nevin."

Q shot him a look and his agent smirked. The bastard knew nuckelavee in their shifted form! And he had to rub it in. Q wondered how he could tell them apart, how he knew that this was Nevin, not anyone else.

"Too bad you can't ride," the nuckelavee – Nevin - said, then started to trot off toward the beach where the two younger ones were racing each other through the cold salt water lapping at their legs.

"From experience," James said, voice low, warm breath against Q's ear, "it's not pleasant, even if you can ride. They aren't horses."

"That is quite obvious, 007," Q replied mildly.

It got him a soft chuckle. Bond leaned in, arms wrapping around his waist, head briefly resting on Q's shoulder.

"You want to leave," the technopath said after a while.

"I'm fine."

"Not this place, not Skyfall. All of this."

Another blown out breath and James buried his face into Q's neck, as if seeking strength, reassurance, warmth, support…

"This is our little weekend vacation."

"It's not very relaxing for you."

"I'm fine, Q."

Like arguing with igneous rock!

The Double-Oh raised his head, brushing his lips over Q's temple, then released him from the embrace.

"I believe we have a lunch date."

Q looked at him, eyes narrowed behind the oversized glasses, taking in the fine lines of stress, the determination etched into his very eyes. James Bond wasn't a man to give up, to turn tail and run from a fight.

And this was a fight.

"Lunch," he only agreed.

The nuckelavee had headed away from the ruin, dark shapes in the distance.

Bond steered the car up the road and through the gate with its lonely sentry, then headed for the Macivrae home.

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It hadn't been hard to find information on hellhounds since they were a common supernatural creature. It was more complicated to sort through everything and filter out what he needed. Finch had spent hours just compiling material that was pertinent to his research and he finally ran a hunter program to grab what he needed and dump the information to be sorted by yet another program.

When he was finally done, Finch had a neat folder that contained every known life-bonded hellhound, categorized into those who had bound themselves to a handler, those who had a handler and a life-partner, and those who, like John, had combined both.

Finch read it all, leaving the combination of handler/intimate bond as his final reading material.

It didn't really give him a lot of new insights, though here or there a few hints were hidden that an intimate relationship would benefit both parties. It wasn't a necessity to make the loyalty bond work, but it was an added bonus, though also a curse when it came to those cerberus in military service or with law enforcement. A handler they related to on a much deeper level than the trust they had already placed in them was also a weakness.

Finch bit his lower lip. He had been aware of that already, but he had been powerless to stop any of the events set into motion two years ago. Even if he had known that the man he had hired as an asset for him to use in his quest was a hellhound, it wouldn't have stopped him. Not really. He hadn't been aware of what could happen.

Neither had been John.

It had happened and there was no going back. And he didn't really want to go back.

Well, he could add his own experiences to the files now, though he wouldn't. It was private and it would remain private. Like his increased flexibility, which had nothing to do with their sexual activities. It was a lessening of cramped muscles, of stiffness in the morning, a balance achieved by whatever this connection had done.

Give and take.

The hellhound had made sure his partner was doing well, and Finch was making sure Reese was balanced, had a purpose, had guidance.

Never a leash.

He would never shackle the other man and he would never abuse the trust. He had sworn that to himself.

And if it meant that he would get to wake up to the presence of John Reese in his bed, to the warmth and serene nature of the powerful form curled close, so be it. Harold almost laughed.

No hardship at all.

"Interesting read, Harold?"

The soft drawl had him look up. He had been subconsciously aware of Reese's presence in the library, but he was so used to the soft steps, probably louder than the man had to be, as if not to startle the cipher, it wasn't alarming.

Not anymore.

He blanked the screen.

A cup of tea was placed on his work table and Reese gave him that infuriatingly knowing smile that had Harold think he was the child caught with its hands in the cookie jar.

"Good morning, Mr. Reese."

"You are up early. Do we have a new number?"

"It is rather quiet right now. You might just take the day off."

Reese sipped from his coffee, quirking an eye brow. Then he sauntered over to one of the book shelves and pulled out a random book. He chose a chair and sat down.

Finch sighed and refrained from rolling his eyes as the other man started to read.

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Two days were enough.

Enough memories, enough getting-to-know-the-new-neighbors, enough time away from civilization and technology.

It cleared something inside his head, Q realized. Being out here, talking to people who were so very different, so very connected to the land, and in a way no different than the technopath. Because a technopath was so very connected to the world of technology. He understood their deep-rooted respect, their need to be here, to preserve Scotland as it is.

And they had enough power with the government to uphold this reservation. Because that is what it was: a reservation for nuckelavee. The government recognized them as what they were and having powerful nuckelavee up high helped immensely.

By Sunday morning, Bond had already packed his things, put his bag into the trunk, and Q just about refrained from rolling his eyes at his partner. The man really couldn't get away from Moira fast enough. He suspected it was mutual.

"It was a pleasure meeting you," Q politely said his good-byes.

Moira smiled humorlessly. "You actually mean it."

"I do. If not for your strongly adverse reaction to one another, I'd believe James could say the same. As it is, it's a matter of clashing energies."

She nodded. "I talked to the others who met him and while they recognize the darkness, I'm truly the only one who is challenged by it all. It's a shame." She held out a hand. "I apologize for how you perceived me, Kieran Whitmarsh. I never wanted to offend you or your partner."

Q took the hand and shook it, accepting the apology. "Meeting James can be a bit overwhelming."

"For some. Like me." She shrugged. "Others don't seem to have the problem. I see the darkness and the vortex that is his soul and I can't but wonder how you survive. I saw it now. You are very special."

Q smiled a little. "Thank you."

Ewan shook his hand, telling him they would always be welcome here, then they were on the road. Bond started to marginally relax after a while and when they passed the half hour point, his features relaxed completely.

Q didn't say a thing, simply logged into his email account and started wading through the mountain in his inbox.

He hadn't heard back from Finch after their brief foray into what The Machine had left in Q's brain. He wasn't surprised. He would have been shocked, to say the least, if the cipher had contacted him again right away.

This was something Finch needed to digest, needed to wrap his brain around, needed to accept. The Machine had taken the decision to tell anyone, except maybe John Reese, who Harold really was out of Finch's hands. It had trusted Q for some reason, had decided to inform him about its creator, and Q… well, he had wanted Finch to know.

He was convinced it hadn't been a mistake.

He simply had to wait.

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Kincade lived where his family had always been: a former farm building on the other side of town. Meaning: several miles out of town, up a hill, around a few challenging bends on an unpaved road, past sheep and grazing cattle.

Bond had been to the place a few times when he was a child. His father had taken him here, left him with their gamekeeper when he had business to attend, and he had watched their gamekeeper tend to his own animals, putter around the house, and he had helped Rose, his late wife, when she had set him on a task.

He had been five or six at the time.

Somehow the farm hadn't changed.

Bond parked the car and got out. Q followed, looking around curiously.

"James."

The massive figure of his old friend filled the door and Bond smiled. "Kincade."

"Didn't know you were coming."

"I visited Ewan and Moira. We had a few more things to talk about concerning Skyfall. I also met the extended clan."

Kincade gestured at them to come inside and Q smiled politely, following the two men.

The inside had changed even less. The open hearth, the tiny kitchen that opened to a living room. It was bright in here, warm and homey, and there were a lot of knick-knacks Bond recognized from almost thirty-five years ago. For a moment he expected Rose to come in, offer tea and cookies.

"Nothing has changed," he remarked as he accepted a cup of tea from his host.

Q nodded his thanks when he was given one, too.

Kincade shrugged. "Rose loved those home improvement shows, but we never got around to her plans. She always said it was still fine as is. And then she passed and I didn't see the sense in changing anything anymore."

Bond looked at a photo taken of the happy couple, fifteen years ago maybe, by the looks of it. He finally turned away.

"When you told me about the Macivraes interest in Skyfall, you also told me about their difference."

Kincade's bushy eyebrows lowered a little.

"And you indirectly asked if I had a problem with them being supernaturals."

"I kinda figured you'd be open-minded," the older man said. "After everything, despite you being so close-mouthed about what you do, I figured whatever it is, you can't do it being a bigoted arse."

Q's brows shot up and Bond smirked.

"No, I can't."

"You're not gonna tell me what it is you do, right?"

"A very loose description would be 'civil servant specializing in security'."

Q tried not to smile.

Kincade just watched him, then nodded. "Government employee."

"In a way."

"And your friend here?"

"Colleague. We work together."

"Tech support," Q simply said when he saw Kincade's quizzical look.

"Good friend," Kincade stated.

"I trust him implicitly at work," James told him calmly. "And I need him as my counter-balance."

The bushy brows lowered again, those still sharp eyes on Q, then on Bond.

"I'm preternatural, Kincade."

The old gamekeeper blinked. "Never figured that, son. Your parents weren't."

"It's not hereditary," Q said calmly. "Preternaturals rarely inherit their ability from their parents, aside from maybe the hecate, but since that is an almost symbiotic existence with the nuckelavee, they can't really be seen as rolemodels for hereditary traits."

Kincade blinked again, slightly confused. He turned back to Bond. "So what are ya?"

"Phoenix."

That got a very obvious shock reaction. The old man nearly took a step back and he was staring hard, mouth opening, then closing again without making a sound.

"I didn't find out until I first… died," Bond continued.

"Apparently it doesn't manifest earlier. There are no indicators," Q supplied calmly.

"You died," Kincade echoed tonelessly. "Because of your job?"

A shrug. "I didn't know why I survived. I didn't know I was a preternatural. That took a while to settle in."

Bond pushed those memories of his first resurrection away. They weren't light, happy ones. They weren't ones to be shared with anyone but Q.

"And you… beat death," Kincade stated.

"In a way."

The sharp eyes were on Q again. "So what's the counter-balance for?"

That was Q's cue. For a longer explanation, for the truth, and it would take a while. It also required another cup of tea.

Thankfully Kincade didn't pry into what being psychically linked partners meant, though Bond suspected the older man knew. There was this light in his eyes, this understanding, though nothing was either confirmed or denied.

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When they left, Kincade looked thoughtful, shaking Q's hand.

"Keep an eye on him, son."

"I always do."

It got him a smile. "Yeah. James, my boy, it was good seeing you again. Might just drop by Ewan and Moira's some time. See how they are doing."

"You do that." Bond gave him a tight smile. "Take care."

They walked to the car and Bond drove off slowly, taking care not to hit too many potholes. Q's eyes were on the road, but Bond was very much aware that his attention was on the phoenix.

"Stop it," he growled.

It got him an innocent look. The Double-Oh stopped the car as they reached the intersection where the side road met the main road again. He reached over and slipped his fingers through Q's, squeezing them.

The technopath leaned over and kissed him, close-mouthed, just a brief contact.

"Home," he only said.

Bond gave him a smile that almost reached his eyes. "Home," he agreed, voice rough and a little bit too gritty.

Q gazed into the glacially blue eyes, then nodded and drew back. Bond released the hand he had been holding and started the car again, pulling out onto the empty main road.

tbc...


	6. Chapter 6

They arrived back at their flat early evening and Q scowled at the mess of clothes that would need to be laundered. Bond just walked into the kitchen, grabbed himself a beer, and took a long swallow. Here was a man who was very happy to be back home, even if as an agent of Her Majesty he was always travelling, never home for long.

Scotland, Skyfall, the Macivraes, and Moira in particular, had thrown him.

Q could tell. The tension was still there, only slowly bleeding away as the phoenix settled. Hours on the road and still… this.

Bloody hell, he thought.

Q would stay in contact with the hecate. She was an interesting woman and she might be able to help the technopath shed some light on what he and James were to each other. At least she seemed to sense some things on them.

Not that Bond would be happy about seeing her again, so personal visits would be kept at a minimum, if at all.

Wintery eyes watched him over the bottle, cool and calculating and just slightly inhuman. The sharper features spoke of the preternatural rising and Q tilted his head a little, almost quizzically, then simply turned and grabbed his bag to sort his clothes for a wash.

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James trapped him against the wall, lips claiming Q's, tasting of expensive beer, dark and strong and exciting. Q slid his hands around the naked waist, the white shirt falling open, allowing him a perfect view of the expanse of muscled chest. He let his partner trail little bites down his neck, let the phoenix rise and claim.

"We really need to get a handle on your reactions, 007," he murmured, lightly biting one ear.

Bond shuddered, burying his face against Q's neck. "This isn't about her."

"Oh?"

"No," he ground out.

It wasn't like they hadn't been together throughout the weekend. Far from it. Q had felt it throughout each day, aware that the preter- and supernaturals around him might just pick up on it as well.

"So this is about…"

"You."

"Me," Q echoed, not even making it a question.

The phoenix growled, literally growled, and Q framed the strong face, smiling a little. He felt the five-o'clock shadow under his palm, rough and a little gritty, like the Double-Oh himself.

"You have me. You know it. Even your primal side knows it."

Bond was visibly gritting his teeth, fighting something Q could only describe as feral in its very nature.

"You have me," he repeated. "Whatever you think, you have me."

This had rattled Bond more than he had thought. Moira was a threat and the threat was still there. Oh, he really had to work with his agent on this.

"We'll handle this," he promised. "But not tonight."

Because tonight was for them and tomorrow both men would be back at work. In Bond's case that meant probably a new case soon, maybe within hours of coming in.

They would enjoy the rest of their weekend for now.

If Q sported a very obvious bite mark the next morning, he didn't speak of it. And none of his underlings dared to comment.

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The second time Finch talked to Q was almost ten days later. He had called the technopath late at night, local time, while Reese was busy with a new number. Q was apparently monitoring his own agent, who was busy saving the world somewhere else. He wouldn't go into detail and Finch wouldn't ask. He simply heard the tension in the younger man's voice and knew it was something dangerous, life-threatening, and right now Bond was probably on his own.

Life of a handler.

Finch would never have chosen that profession, would never have thought he was capable of it anyway, and now that was exactly what he was doing.

Ignoring their day-to-day business, he went back to the revelation about his machine. And they talked.

In detail.

Finch was terrified and elated by the changes in his program, his machine.

"I think I have been deemed worthy enough to know. Trustworthy enough."

Q sounded almost mystified.

"It… knows you."

"Well, yes. We met," the technopath admitted slowly. "But it imprinted on you. You are The Admin, the creator, the one it will always turn to. I might be more like… back-up."

He sounded amused and thoughtful in one.

Back-up. Finch thought about it. Back-up handler? Back-up admin? It was possible. The Machine was known to set up contingencies, like Finch had done with Reese that one time. It might see Q as one to turn to in case of a catastrophe.

Like a hard reset. A virus. Decima trying to hack it again.

"It trusts you," Finch repeated softly.

"I could hardly harm it, Harold," was the slightly scoffing reply.

Q might not notice the inflection of his voice, but he sounded a little bit affronted right now. Finch smiled.

"I didn't mean it in a negative sense of the word, Mr. Whittmore. It trusts you. I'm actually amazed by that development. And relieved. It sought out a shield, someone to protect it when I couldn't be that person any more."

"My abilities to protect your creation are very limited."

"You covered its traces."

"It hid within me."

Finch nodded, though Q couldn't see it. "And if you had been more adept in your abilities, you could have harmed it. You could change the program, you could erase fragments, you could cripple it."

Q was silent. "But I am not that person, Harold. It could snuff me out like a candle."

"You would never be that person, except when you or Mr. Bond are under duress and threatened."

There was a soft sigh.

"I… don't mind that you… know, Kian," the cipher added, a bit halting, trying to find the right words. "About me. I know John wouldn't care. His files have been known to others before."

"But not yours."

"No." He drummed his fingers on the dark desk top. "I reinvented myself. I became different people. I'm… there was never anyone who knew me, the real me."

"Until now?"

"Until John."

"Oh."

"I told him my real name and I gave him access to the file you already know, Q." Finch felt something inside of him tremble. It had been a massive show of trust, a gigantic step forward in their relationship.

"Let me guess: he never looked at it."

"Possible."

"But I looked."

"For you it's a memory. I understand that. I think The Machine… it's… it might see it as necessary, even though I would argue that it isn't."

Because knowledge was power and power was something Finch wasn't ready to surrender to anyone. The Machine had taken that decision out of his hands, had involved Q in a way Finch hadn't even contemplated before.

For a reason.

For back-up.

For an alliance that had already been formed and shaped and maintained. Now it was even more interwoven.

"Harold?"

He jerked out of his thoughts, embarrassed that he hadn't heard Q the first time.

"My apologies," he murmured.

"I created an island server," the technopath said, clearly repeating something he had mentioned before. He was way too amused about Harold's little fugue moment.

"For what reason?"

"The access is limited to two people. You and me. You can find me and James there. All of us. And my notes and observations on the phoenix."

"Q, no."

"It wants me to be the back-up, Harold, but that goes both ways. We might need your help one day, in a capacity that exceeds what you have already done," Q said firmly. "You might need to get to Bond in a way only I could. You might need knowledge that I have and you couldn't get to. The trust goes both ways."

He drew a shaky breath, looking at the email that had just popped up on his secure server.

Password protected.

"The Machine can open the line for you," Q added and Finch froze.

"W-what?"

"You simply have to ask it."

"You talked to it?!"

Q laughed. "Dear god, no. I haven't been closer to the HUD than absolutely necessary. It was a request, using my private network and heavy encoding, I sent and it agreed."

It boggled the mind and Harold closed his eyes, feeling that tremor again. His creation had become so much more, so much faster than anticipated.

"Read it, Harold," the technopath could be heard. "It might save our collective arses one day."

He laughed breathlessly. "Probably. Thank you."

Finch opened his eyes, gazing at the password protected email sitting innocently in his inbox. He would read it; later.

"I might have a request on a different matter," Q said.

He raised his eyebrows. "What matter?"

"Hecate."

"Elementary witches," Finch said immediately. "Very wide-spread preternatural. And common."

"What wasn't very common was the phoenix's reaction to one particular. I think if James had been less controlled he would have torn her to pieces. Or tried to anyway."

"Ah. Is that the same one who managed to fend off his attack while he was visiting Skyfall?"

"The very same."

"Interesting."

"You wouldn't call it anything less than a bloody disaster had you been there," Q griped. "It was like holding on to a rabid dog."

Harold smiled a little. "Not a perfect analogy, considering his preternatural status."

"I've never been more glad he isn't a supernatural, Mr. Finch. He was reacting so strongly to her mere presence."

"I might have some first editions dealing with hecate of the old times, but I doubt they will help. Everything about them is rather widely known. Hecate aren't rare, aren't secretive, and since each country, each culture, had their own variations of their preternatural abilities, it might be impossible to track down what exactly this one woman has that makes Mr. Bond react so intensely."

"Well, manners might be one thing," Q laughed. "She is very… straight-forward. And she doesn't back down. But we met others and Moira Macivrae is the only trigger in the whole clan. All hecate could sense our connection, could sense Bond's dark nature, but she was the only one who saw everything. She mentioned she's surprised he isn't a shape-changer with the amount of energy he stores."

Finch frowned. "He has evolved," he said thoughtfully. "The moment he didn't go over the edge he became something the world hadn't seen in what I suspect is probably a long time. Counter-balancing a phoenix is almost impossible. Finding that balance is equally difficult for them."

"I know we both entered uncharted territory, which is why I'm flying blind," the quartermaster agreed. "I've reviewed my own notes and I know Bond is getting stronger. I can feel it sometimes, Harold."

"How?"

There was a moment of silence. "I… I can't really describe it. It's bloody difficult. I simply know. Moira mentioned that the phoenix is a dark creature, residing inside a human soul, and it leaves when the body and mind can't support it anymore. That it destroys its host. She talked about it like a separate entity. I know it isn't. It's the primal side of Bond's nature. It's the blood-lust and killer instinct and everything that needs and wants and will survive against all odds. The vicious ferocity that would always kill. And still…" He hesitated. "It's no longer like before. I could always see it, touch it. I was never afraid of the darkness. I wasn't terrified of the lust and hunger for blood and violence."

"You're the counter-balance," Finch said softly. "You're the only one that understands and can weather this storm, can take it."

"Yes. And it…" Q blew out a breath. "James… he said he loves me."

Finch blinked.

"Not just once. He meant it, Harold. And it meant it. It was the phoenix and him. It wasn't an empty phrase, a heat of the moment declaration. It was... all of him. The phoenix... loves me. Instinct has no emotions; the dark hunger can't love. But it does. And it… it grew stronger. After everything that happened, it strengthened the bond into something that brought James back from an impossible resurrection."

"Uncharted territory," Harold echoed.

"Yes, indeed."

"The phoenix is evolving and the hecate noticed."

"She's downright terrified of the power, of the connection, and that the phoenix isn't dominating and controlling me. She truly believed me to be a puppet, a toy for the phoenix to use and abuse."

Harold leaned back, eyes on the grimy window, the milky panes barely clear enough to let in much sunlight. He had met James Bond only briefly, but he knew the phoenix was a terrible thing. There had been so very few of them in the past that had made it into any kind of report, lore or folk tale. They were intense, living hot and fast and under a pressure that destroyed them because the human body, mind and soul wasn't made to be like this. Their own amazing abilities to resurrect were their downfall.

Unless they found a balance.

And their nature would develop, evolve, flourish.

Elementary witches were attuned to the flow of energy around them, so if Moira Macivrae was more receptive than others, she had every right to be terrified of what James Bond was.

"She said he felt like a shape-changer?" Finch picked up what Q had mentioned already.

"Yes. Apparently supernaturals house a lot of energy due to their abilities to shift shape. She says it's necessary to start the process. Preternaturals can't jump classifications," he added with a little scoff.

"I doubt Mr. Bond will sprout wings," Finch agreed, lips curling into an amused smile.

"Dear god, please, no!" Q groaned. "No claws, no wings, no fangs. The man is a menace with my weapons already. Or without them. I also realize that what she picked up as shifting energy is what he uses to resurrect. It's simply… unsettling to have it spelled out. That he can be seen that way."

"By one hecate."

"Well, yes. One person James won't talk to, or be in the same room with, if he can help it. We really need to work on that."

Finch grinned at the tone of voice. "A handler's work is never done."

"Ah, yes. Sadly. But it keeps life interesting."

Finch could only agree to that. His own was only too interesting as well.

As for the phoenix, he would read the accumulated facts. He would look into hecate and their sensitivity to the energy in a supernatural being. It would be an interesting read, if nothing else.

tbc...


	7. Chapter 7

Seven thousand miles southwest of London, James Bond was having his own problems, and he knew he was on his own to get out of the mess someone else had made. It was a predicament that could have been prevented, but as it was, he was right in the middle of it.

His contact, a very beautiful woman by the name of Angel Alexandria, who also hadn't been immune to his charm, was probably dead. If not, she would soon be. The man he was after didn't appreciate betrayal, and Angel had been his mistress. She had also been Bond's way in. That he had slept with her had had nothing to do with her change of heart; it had been more of a rise of conscience after seeing several of her town's people getting killed by an experimental virus.

Now she was probably among the casualties.

He mourned her death to a degree. She had been an intelligent, beautiful and educated woman. She had had a degree in biology, which had been her ticket into the insane operation of Daniel Marshfield, former CIA agent, now a traitor to his own country and as insane as they got.

She had also been a tool for him, a key into the place where Marshfield resided. She had meant nothing to him, though the night with her had been pleasurable.

Now Angel was dead.

Life went on.

Maybe it had also been a dumb idea to go up against his captors, who were numerous and well-armed, and one of them was pretty much the epitome of steroid muscle treatments.

But it was better than dying.

That was usually a mess and Bond had decided not to tempt fate. After the latest resurrections and what that had changed with him and Q, he really wasn't looking for another death experience. While the phoenix loved the thrill of a fight, the exhilaration of near-death, lusting for the blood of the enemy, Bond would try to rein in those instincts if he could.

Sometimes he couldn't.

Sometimes it wasn't advisable to go against his basic instincts, mainly because they insured he lived to fight another day.

Sometimes it was better not to test the limits of his rebirthing powers because the moment he died, he would have no control over where his body would end up. That had backfired in an amazingly bad way in Kazakhstan.

He landed a kick in the mid-section of Mr. Steroids, but it was like hitting a pillar of stone. His foot exploded into pain and he gasped, falling backwards. The goon grunted and flexed his fingers, the muscles in his meaty arms jumping. The grin on his face was downright nasty and might have a little bit too much fang to be human.

Oh great.

A supernatural thug.

Just his luck.

Bond evaded him as he lunged for the Double-Oh, but as he turned, the huge fist clipped him at the temple and he briefly saw stars explode in front of his eyes.

Mr. Steroids wasn't a werewolf and he probably wasn't a hellhound either. His eyes were the wrong color – some greenish-orange – and the wrong shape – slitted. The fangs were not those of a wolf either. Bond wasn't a book on supernatural creatures, but if he had to make a guess, this guy was something reptilian.

Right now he wasn't really interested in the name or species. He just wanted to survive.

As an agent, he knew hand-to-hand combat; he knew how to move and where to hit; but this guy was like made of granite. Probably something to do with what he was. And those teeth were nasty. Very, very nasty. Dodging more blows and landing a few of his own, Bond danced around his opponent..

The rain pelted him, growing more dense by the second, and it was like standing in a lukewarm shower. Mr. Steroids made another run for him and Bond moved.

He evaded a few blows, then his foot caught on something in the mud. The ground was sloping sharply away from him and he dug his feet into the mud, trying to slow down.

Something hit him from behind with the force of a sledge hammer and the air was driven out of his lungs as he fell forward. His back exploded into anguish and for a second there was nothing but the bright white lights of pain. Then his whole world tilted as he was thrown down the hill, sliding through the mud with an ever-increasing speed. Bushes and undergrowth brushed by, slowing him slightly. It was a massive tree that actually stopped the hapless agent.

Bond didn't feel all that much after hitting the tree. He just lay in the mud, the rain washing away some of the stains, soaking him even more if that was possible.

The world around him was a blur, growing smaller and smaller as darkness claimed him.

x X XX xx X

Seven thousand miles northeast, Q was working, looking for any sign of his agent. He was aware that Bond had gone undercover, had gone silent and deep, but there was a distinct lack of any sign of his whereabouts.

Q only sighed and logged the last position into his network, then turned to the next report to review.

The frequency was staying open, just in case, and he had his eyes and ears everywhere to catch even the slightest twitch should Bond resurface.

He would.

He always did.

x X XX xx X

Even if it took three days for the next life sign to come through and confirm that the Double-Oh was still operative.

x X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx X

It was coincidence that Bond had a one-day layover in New York on his way back from South America. Chile, to be exact. He was in moderately good physical condition, though Q would disagree with his assessment.

As would Medical.

Bloody idiots.

Well, Medical were idiots; Q was simply concerned and he had every right to be, seeing as who he was dealing with.

No, James Bond didn't see a bullet scrape across his left bicep, a shallow knife wound to his left thigh, various deep bruises all over his back, scraped and bruised knuckles, as well as a cracked rib as serious. He knew his body best and he knew when he reached his limits; most of the time anyway.

Getting beat up by some supernatural thug and thrown down a ravine hadn't been exactly his plan. Nor had the mudslide, the rain, the whole mess of finding his way back again been pre-planned.

He had been lucky to stumble across some very helpful people.

He had also been lucky to get a whiff of his target again.

His target hadn't been so lucky in the end, since he was now dead and buried in an anonymous plot somewhere in the middle of nowhere, his operation blown to pieces, just like most of his base, and the biological agents had been secured.

Bond decided he was even more than lucky that he had lost the comm. device – again, by choice, fully aware he wouldn't be able to call for any kind of help or assistance. At the time it had been the only way to insure his cover.

Q would definitely give him that Look when he was back home anyway, force him to go down to get checked out by Medical, then berate him on the loss of valuable equipment.

It was their game.

Bond enjoyed it immensely.

And he would deny destroying, losing or badly damaging equipment just to get a rise out of his handler to the very end.

The Double-Oh grinned, perfectly able to imagine Q's expression when he told him about that. Right down to the last frown creasing the youthful face, the brows lowering a fraction of an inch, the lips forming a thin line of aggravation.

The layover was convenient. It gave him a night in a luxurious hotel to heal in peace, as well as the possibility to talk to Reese.

Checking in, presenting the credit card issued to him for this mission – with a good-sized fund on the account – Bond was quickly given a suite. It gave him a nice view over Central Park. He didn't really have eyes for the view, though. He simply showered, checked his wounds, then changed into cleaner clothes.

A brief message to his phone told him that Reese was on his way, probably already around to stake out the area – something Bond would have done as well.

x X XX xx X

They had agreed to meet in the hotel bar. At six it wasn't that busy and most patrons were hotel guests having an early drink or a snack.

Reese ordered himself a beer and Bond chose the same, settling down comfortably. Their table was slightly out of the way and the position gave them a good view of the entire bar and the entrance, as well as the exit.

"Q called before we were so unfortunately disconnected," Bond only remarked.

Reese's mouth twisted into a brief smile. He knew all about unfortunate disconnections on a mission.

"He briefed me on his conversation with Mr. Finch."

"Quite a ride," Reese agreed.

"Quite some information he was entrusted with," the Double-Oh clarified evenly.

"Which you were told?"

The wintery blue eyes reflected amusement. "Only if I asked. What your little machine left him with is a load of information and it's nothing to share over a cup of tea."

"I would think so."

Conversation was easy between them, two men who were a lot more alike than one might think. Reese found that trusting Bond wasn't as difficult as it had been when he had still been with the pack. Maybe because of who they were, how they worked, what made them tick. They had a background that was as different as it was the same. They had a connection to a man who was their handler, the most trusted individual in their lives, who balanced them, who was part of them, and who they related to on more than a professional level.

Yes, they were so very much alike.

And somehow the hellhound wasn't put off by the darker nature of the phoenix. He was fascinated by the power. Finch had tried to explain to Reese what it meant, what being a phoenix entailed, but it was very hard to understand and even harder to process.

John simply accepted it, that this was a creature he wouldn't be able to kill for long, that Bond was something out of nightmares, and that it surpassed him or a werewolf when it came to viciousness and cold, calculating blood-lust.

Bond ordered a Scotch to wash down his beer. Reese kept nursing the one he still had.

"Q calls it a safeguard measure from your machine," the MI6 agent remarked casually. "Like a back-up."

Reese cocked an eyebrow. "Back-up?"

"Who knows? You might need us one day."

Well, they already had. And maybe Q would call on their help one day. Reese didn't mind.

The hellhound knew that Finch had offered the other man a job should Bond ever want to retire from the spy game. And Reese would smoothly adjust to another operative, especially this one, as he had already adjusted to Shaw's presence. He doubted that the move would be made any time soon, though. He doubted that Q would simply pull up stakes and move.

Contingency.

He almost laughed.

The Machine was a devious program and it showed who had programmed it. Finch could be proud of his creation. It was as paranoid as the cipher himself.

x X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx X

They called it a night two hours and a good meal later. Bond would have to catch his plane in the morning and he looked like he needed some rest. Reese had noticed the injuries, though he hadn't broached that subject. He knew about battle wounds only too well. From Bond's general appearance he had probably been up with not even an hour of sleep for more than twenty-four hours, and he would keep going if he had to.

He didn't have to.

Reese walked away from the hotel, all senses alert, as always. Eyes automatically scanning the surrounding area and taking in everything, the former CIA operative headed home. It was only a little past eight and the people out on the streets were shoppers, tourists, late night workers.

"You there, Finch?" he asked quietly as he tapped his earpiece.

"Where else would I be, Mr. Reese?" came the reassuring voice.

"Well, I don't know. Having a late dinner? Watching the game on TV? Playing cards at a gentlemen' club? Or maybe calling it an early night and catching up on your beauty sleep?" Reese listed, voice low and teasing.

Finch scoffed. "Hardly, Mr. Reese. How did your meeting with Mr. Bond go?"

Reese wasn't surprised that the cipher knew about it. He was aware of how little passed Harold by. Sometimes he even left the ear piece on, an act of clear deliberation. Finch had told Reese before that he was always there, just like Reese always listened in. If Finch didn't want him to do so, he could block the line, but he didn't. He hadn't.

Because he wanted it this way.

"It went," Reese replied. "We had a little chat."

He could almost imagine the raised eyebrows. Reese and Bond were men of little words.

"We could still catch the rest of the game," Reese offered.

There was a moment of contemplative silence. "That would be… acceptable," Finch answered.

John allowed a faint smile to come to his lips. "I'll see you then, Harold."

It amused him sometimes, how they still did this little dance, despite how much they had shared personally, privately, very intimately. It was a game, one he enjoyed, one he liked playing again and again. It was something so very them.

Finch was getting more and more comfortable with their closeness, with being who he really was, dropping the masks, the pretense, the shields. And John liked seeing the man underneath, the man he had caught glimpses of before. This was the man the hellhound desired, who he was so incredibly attracted to. This was the man he had pledged his loyalty to.

One and the same.

tbc...


	8. Chapter 8

He hadn't chosen a suite. It was a deluxe room nevertheless, with a king-sized bed, a large bathroom, a bar section that was included in the rather steep room price, and a view over Central Park.

Bond had no eyes for the view. He stood in the bathroom, looking at his mirror image. He was naked, except for his underpants, and his skin was riddled with bruises, scrapes and cuts that had been hidden underneath his clothes.

The long gash along his left thigh he had stitched and bandaged. Bond undid the wrapping and changed it after cleaning the wound. The bullet scrape across his left bicep had scabbed over, but he had had to stitch it closed as well.

Nothing life-threatening. Nothing that would be a problem should he be required to go on the next mission right away, though he wouldn't say no to a week of recovery – even if it meant desk duty.

"Hello, Q," he said softly, smiling at his mirror image.

"Good evening, 007," came the cool reply from across the ocean.

Bond might have lost his comm. devices, but he had acquired a cell phone. The number he had dialed was secure and he knew Q would make sure that their call wouldn't be traced, nor would anyone listen in. Not even The Machine.

"Busy day?" the Double-Oh asked as he poked at a healing scrape along his shoulder.

"You've been incommunicado, 007. It was an eventless day indeed. I caught up with some of my other projects."

Ah, there it was. The faint irascibility. That light note of having to put up with an agent who so conveniently went off the grid and only resurfaced after his handler was close to strangling him.

"I'm a project?" Bond teased as he taped the bullet scrape.

"A never-ending one. Where did you lose my equipment this time?"

The annoyance was clearer now, mixed with that mild chastisement of having lost another piece of valuable gear.

"Do you really want to know? I thought I'd surprise you with my report."

Bond grinned to himself. He could just imagine Q's slightly huffy expression.

"You never really surprise me."

"What about Bangkok?"

Yes, there was the huff. And probably an eye-roll that, while he couldn't see it, he clearly knew was happening.

"You still want me to believe that a snake ate your phone?"

"The truth and nothing but the truth. It was a big snake. I'd send you a picture, but…"

"It wasn't a snake this time," Q stated.

"No. A mountain came down on it. Rainwater, mud, you do the equation."

There was a moment of silence, then Q sighed, irritation clearly audible. "A mountain."

"Yes."

"And you decided to lose the comm. gear, too? No, don't answer that. I should know already."

"Still got your gun."

"Small miracles," was the muttered answer. "If it still works."

"It does."

Even if it had scuff marks and a deep scratch along the barrel.

"Where are you now?"

"You don't know?"

Another annoyed noise. "I'd rather have you confirm the location."

He laughed and reached for his t-shirt. "New York City. The Plaza, to be precise. Check the company card. And if you want my exact location: the bathroom, in front of the mirror."

"I take it you and Mr. Reese have met?"

"Yes, it was an interesting conversation. Mr. Finch seems to be working through the revelation."

Bond rolled his shoulders, felt a little sting here or there, but it wasn't bad. He pulled on the shirt, then took the smartphone and walked into the main room.

"I thought it would be a little troublesome for him."

"You could have kept it to yourself, Q. You told him. I think that's a show of trust."

James settled on the bed and reclined, back resting against the headboard. He could look out the window from here, the curtains were still open, and the view was nice.

"My flight is still on schedule," he remarked.

"I am quite aware of it," the quartermaster confirmed. "British Airways Flight 107, departure time eight a.m. from Newark. First class reservation, row 5, seat K."

Bond grinned. Of course his handler knew about his travel plans. He hadn't expected any less.

"New mission?"

"Not to my knowledge. Tanner will want a debrief after you have arrived, then Medical."

Bond sighed.

Q didn't comment.

"How are you?" the technopath finally asked, voice dropping to a more personal level, losing the distance.

"I'm fine, Q. Nothing life-threatening."

"That can be everything from a stab wound to a bullet to the gut, 007," was the stern reply.

"Bullet scrape to the arm, cut to the thigh, a few bumps and bruises. I didn't die. I'm fine."

Q muttered something uncomplimentary that had Bond laugh.

"I'll see you tomorrow," the Double-Oh said.

"Tomorrow," Q agreed, voice lowering a little once more. "Try not to cause too much havoc on the way home."

"Good night, Q."

And with that he switched off the phone. He lay back on the large, comfortable bed, gazing at the ceiling. Too bad M hadn't found another mission for him, this side of the Atlantic. It would have meant sending Q with the necessary briefing, papers and new gear. It would have meant some private time.

Well, he would have soon because Medical would ground him for a day or two anyway.

Bond closed his eyes, smiling to himself, and fell asleep.

x X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx X

His return to MI6 was a routine affair. James Bond was debriefed by Tanner, then sent to Medical, who poked and prodded him while he tried not to kill or permanently injure one of them. He would do the evaluation run, as ordered, and he would be cleared for the field. There was no doubt in Bond's mind.

He finally he sauntered into Q branch.

Gray suit tailored to perfection and maybe just a little too tight. White shirt. Black tie. Polished, black shoes. The blue eyes shone brightly in the tanned face, the dark blond hair perfectly coiffed. He was a sight to behold and the cut of the suit attracted a few surreptitious looks from both genders.

"Q," he greeted the head of Q branch.

Q looked up, pushing his glasses back up his nose. His hair was as messy as always, but in that artful way that spoke of deliberation. One lock roguishly hung into his forehead.

Bond really wanted to push it back.

Q was dressed as smartly as always, even wearing a tie to the red and black vest over the white shirt with its black stripes. Bond walked around the work station and smirked.

"New trousers," he murmured, leaning closer to Q without even making an effort. "Colorful, too. Yellow."

The technopath glanced at him, eyebrows rising. "Are you critiquing my wardrobe? And it's mustard, if you have to know. Not yellow."

"Looks yellow to me, though. I'm also just appreciating the spot of color in the black and white that is Q branch."

It was true. Many of the underlings wore black, gray or blue suits, sweaters or a variation thereof. Q almost always stood out with his choice of clothes and colors. It was refreshing.

"I'm not going to argue with you about colors and shades all day. You are a master of distraction. I'm quite aware that you destroyed my equipment, 007. Why are you here?" the quartermaster asked, his behavior in their work environment as always professional.

It was what threw off those who claimed him and Bond were an item. It also spread uncertainty among those who thought they were an on-and-off couple.

"I'm grounded."

He walked around the room, eyes flicking over the work stations, the underlings doing their best not to appear like they were watching or listening in. Nothing much had changed in the time since they had made the underground bunker the new MI6 headquarters. The white-washed walls were still as pristine as before, though the screens had doubled in numbers.

Bond completed his rounds, smirking at Q's neutral expression.

"I'm not running a day-care center for grounded agents, 007."

"I know."

He opened the button on his suit jacket and made himself comfortable on the couch. His couch. He kicked up his feet, crossing them at the ankles, and leaned back comfortably.

The quartermaster turned, leaning against the table, hands curling around the desk top. Q's annoyance was clearly visible, but there was a fondness in those eyes that spoke a different language.

"I read the report."

"I'm sure you did."

As his handler, Q would read any and all reports, but he also kept up to date with every other Double-Oh agent in the field.

"And nothing happened," Bond added, voice softer, lower, reassuring his partner that yes, he hadn't died.

Right now he was convinced that Q would feel it again should it happen, and it wasn't a good feeling to know that this was a possibility. He didn't want Q to feel any of the violence and death he encountered routinely, but it might be possible.

"Aside from blowing up the compound of an insane, rogue CIA operative with a knack for hoarding biological agents? Or leaving a trail of destruction wide enough for me to follow without the need of satellite imagery? Or stealing not only an Apache helicopter, but also a private jet?"

"I didn't steal it, Q. I acquired it. And the private jet belongs to a very generous woman by the name of Elizabeth Franconi. I was allowed to use it. Free of charge."

Bond smiled his most charming smile. All it got him was a scowl.

"Of course it was."

"All for Queen and country."

Q's brows rose and he shook his head.

Bond winked at him and switched on the tablet he had taken off Q's work station.

"Oh please," the technopath muttered, though there was a smile around his lips.

It was one of those experimental tablets that seemed to migrate to Q's work place now and then. James had tried some of them before. He found them quite interesting and he had once had had the pleasure of a 3-D holo-projector model. That had been quite entertaining.

Q turned back to his work.

The tablet came on and Bond suppressed a laugh when Angry Birds popped up. Another window informed him that his virtual library had been restocked and there were several new books he was looking forward to read, as well as back issues to magazines and newspapers.

He leaned back more comfortably.

x X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx X

Bond had disappeared out of Q branch before Q's official office hours had been over, and he knew his partner wouldn't pull any overtime today. It had been almost too easy to walk past the busy working bees, taking the well-known corridors back to the surface.

"Plans?" a voice sounded in his ear and he had to smile. It was a habit to wear the comm.

"No," was the low, quiet reply.

There was a hum, then nothing. Bond smiled more and slipped out of the building, past security, joining the people on the street. It was actually a rather nice day and he decided to enjoy the rest of it in one of his favorite bars.

x X XX xx X

He walked into their flat – it had taken a while but now he really called it 'their' – the door locking behind himself automatically, immediately scanning the area for Q. He found him in the office, at the computer; where else?

From the looks of it, he hadn't been home for more than ten minutes either.

Their eyes met and the phoenix rumbled, wanting closeness, hungering for its bonded mate, and Bond approached the technopath almost without conscious thought.

The kiss was softer than expected, almost probing, testing the waters, then the Double-Oh dove into it. It was met enthusiastically, strongly, with as much force as Bond had put into their kiss. He felt slender fingers dig into his shirt, pushing him back, and he let it happen. His back connected with the wall. There was a flare of needles from his cracked rib, but he refused to give in to it.

Q pulled away, lips red, cheeks flushed, breathing hard, but the expression in those eyes was anything but smitten or love-struck.

"How bad?" he demanded.

"You know the file."

"I know you."

Bond framed his face with calloused hands, smiling, then kissing him softly again. "I'm fine."

"I keep telling you, I know your 'fine', 007."

He stepped back, still smiling, and slipped off the suit jacket, then unbuttoned his shirt. Sharp eyes followed his every movement and Q frowned as he discovered the multiple cuts and contusions. He brushed gentle fingers over the worst discoloration.

The phoenix almost purred.

This wasn't just worry. It was curiosity, too. Q knew how much his agent could take, knew that he could survive against all odds and come back. This was more. This was the bond, this was the reaction to something that was outside his considerable control. Q could log himself into almost anything around the world. He could see everything, talk to Bond through a million devices, but he couldn't stop death. He couldn't keep his agent from harm.

Bond slid off the shirt and Q's gaze was drawn to the taped wound on his left bicep. The bullet graze.

James kissed him again, trying to distract him from the really rather insignificant injury.

"I didn't die," he whispered against the technopath's lips. "I'm okay. Nothing happened."

"I know you didn't die," was the calm reply. "Because I would have felt it."

Bond stared at him, feeling something inside of him constrict at the matter-of-fact delivery. He didn't want that. He didn't want any echoes of what he went through, of the power surge, of the phoenix rising and claiming back Life, going through to his partner.

"You know it's how it works now," was the quiet reply.

Acceptance.

Complete and utter acceptance.

It floored Bond again and again. Q had taken it all, accepted it all, and he had incorporated it into his life.

"This is what we are. It's what we need to be," he continued, voice low, intense. "I leech my strength off you; feeling the phoenix is a small price to pay. I'm not afraid of you and never have been."

Bond's fingers flexed, one hand resting on the narrow hips. The darkness inside him seemed to grow with the words, the acceptance cutting through his control.

He lost himself in the next kiss. It was warm and deep and gentle and had none of the frantic, hungry claiming of the past. It relayed something deep inside his soul to the other man; something that was received and answered. It freed him in a way, reassured him that Q was right here with him. It lay deeper, and he had no words for it.

None at all.

Q cupped his neck as they kissed, pulling him in deeper and when they parted, Bond let his head drop onto one warm shoulder.

A tremor passed through him.

"I love you," Q whispered into one ear. "And I need you. I want this so badly, James. I want to feel you. I want to know. Always."

He screwed his eyes shut, pulling the younger man closer. His counter-balance. The steady rock in the vortex that was his soul.

"Kian."

Q stepped back, but the fingers of his right hand curled around James' wrist and he pulled.

Toward the bedroom.

He followed.

Only too willingly.

tbc...


	9. Chapter 9

The call came early afternoon the next day. Q was surprised to see the number and he picked it up.

"Mrs. Macivrae," he greeted the caller politely.

It got him a soft chuckle. "Hello, Kieran."

"Moira," he corrected himself. "Do what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I thought you might want to have some information I was given about the only time one of my kind met someone who was like your partner."

Q froze, eyes widening. "When?" he managed.

"Quite some time ago. Actually, almost two hundred years. It wouldn't let me go… seeing and meeting such a dark creature, seeing it up close, feeling the vortex of raw power that is his soul. Knowing he is maybe the first to find a counter-balance and beat the inevitable decline."

Yes, she was still straight-forward and didn't beat around the bush in any way.

"I had to dig around a little and it wasn't easy to track down the hecate's heirs. I've sent you an email with the attachment."

"Thank you," Q said, touched. "For looking."

"You might not like what you read."

"Believe me, Moira, nothing written on paper can change what I feel, what I know. I've touched the phoenix, all of it, and I know the darkness."

"Yes, you do," she said. "I have to remind me of that fact. Reading what one of my kind noticed… I'm glad I'm not bound to one."

"If you were, you wouldn't feel like that. It would be perfect."

She chuckled. "I have to take your word for it."

Yes, she would have. Q was aware that an outsider wouldn't be able to see what he did, feel what he felt. That miasma of primal surges the phoenix experienced, that ability to deal with violence and death, its own death over and over, was something only the counter-balance could understand. And deal with perfectly fine.

That was why it was him and no one else.

That was the reason he hadn't gone insane.

He was the perfect match, the one who filled that empty slot in a phoenix's soul and pulled it back from the brink to live.

"Thank you for the copies," Q told her. "I very much appreciate it."

"There is so little on what your partner is, I thought you might be interested to know what his kind was seen as two hundred years ago."

Q smiled humorlessly, even though he knew she couldn't see him. He wasn't so sure he wanted to know what kind of monster they had called a phoenix back then.

Nevertheless he downloaded the file attachment the moment he had said good-bye to Moira, took the tablet, and walked over to the couch.

xx X xx X x XX

The pages were hand-written, sometimes close to illegible, and the wording was… old. Old-fashioned. It made it hard to read fluidly, but Q had a few programs that took care of that. They were his own coding and he had them on the MI6 servers as well. They were an immense help sometimes.

Moira had added that she suspected the author of the text she had found might have been as receptive to the phoenix's energies as she was; that this would explain some of her words.

What the hecate by the name of Kenna MacNeill had written down was like a nightmarish horror tale about something that shouldn't possibly be able to exist in this world. She called the phoenix a creature of the abyss, a primeval, mindless thing that hungered for blood and the kill, that took no prisoners and had no mercy on anyone's soul. She suspected it was a parasitic entity, a preternatural abomination that shouldn't be allowed to live.

Q stopped reading after a while, disgusted by her observations. He suspected that Moira had been correct: Kenna had been highly sensitive to the energy of the phoenix, had let that guide her thoughts. Since she was an elementary witch, she primarily reacted to energies, not the person it belonged to. She had most likely never made an effort to get to know the preternatural, only taken a look at the darkness and drawn her conclusions from there.

The technopath grimaced.

He knew about facades and masks and pretense. He knew there was so much more, especially considering what line of work he was in. Take the Double-Ohs, for example. He knew them all, had dealt with them on missions or throughout briefings, had equipped them with weapons and other gear, and he knew there were a lot of angles to them all. Not just James Bond. All of them.

And he knew Bond best of them. He knew everything there was about his agent and partner. The others were operatives; he handled them, but he didn't know them intimately.

Kenna hadn't even gone that far in trying to discover who and what the phoenix truly had been. He had judged it within minutes and that had been enough for her.

He skimmed over the rest and found a few interesting observations near the end. Apparently the phoenix, who was never named, but who had been a man, had been close to the edge when he had first arrived in Kenna's little town. He had been looking for death, wanting to end it, but there hadn't been relief. There had only ever been the resurrection.

Throughout the pages, Kenna's tone changed a little. Apparently the months in close proximity to the dark preternatural had given her moments of insight, pushing away her instinctive reactions to the vortex of energy inside the man.

"He hungers for the darkness, oblivion," Kenna had written. "He cannot go on, but his nature won't let him stop either. I can feel his intense pain and I suspect he has lost much. The darkness is always there now, on his mind, swallowing what is left of his humanity. I fear for the day he finally gets his wish. I fear to see the monster unleashed."

Her fears turned to reality a year later when the unfortunate phoenix died one last time. Kenna had jumper over her own shadow and gotten to know the man, maybe had even started to sympathize with him, and sometimes she called him 'Finn'. Whether that was his real name or not, it was never mentioned.

And then he died. That was the part Q read quite closely, the description of what happened to a phoenix who came back one last time, as the monstrous thing it really was, without a human guise. The man had still looked human, but he hadn't been.

For the short amount of time it took the phoenix to finally perish, it had been freed of the humanity it lived with, had stared at Kenna with inhuman eyes, 'the color of gold and fire', as she had put it, and she wrote of distinctly inhuman features rising.

Like claws.

Like fangs.

Like the skin changing color from human paleness to 'the black of night, of its very soul'.

And then the man had died.

Looking human again after death; finally free.

Q had read over that part again and again.

"Dear god," he murmured.

Kenna went on about the burial, which had been swift and in an unmarked grave, and her fear that the phoenix was now looking for a new host. Q scoffed a little. As if the phoenix was a sentient, or semi-sentient, parasite to jump from human host to human host. The phoenix was a rare form of a preternatual, extremely violent in its nature, and it was very, very powerful because of the energy it pulled to resurrect.

But it wasn't an abomination.

James wasn't an abomination.

"Interesting read?"

He turned his head, not the least bit startled by the appearance of the man in question behind him. It was hard to sneak up on Q within his own four walls. There was enough electronic surveillance equipment in here to make it an impossibility. Q was always logged into his own network while at home. There was no danger of losing himself in it. He knew everything inside out. It was also a good work-out for his brain.

He had known Bond was back in the flat the moment the man had walked through the main door on the ground floor.

"In a way," the technopath said. "Mrs. Macivrae sent me something one of her kind had written down about an encounter with a phoenix over two hundred years ago."

"Thrilling," Bond muttered, reading over what he could see, bending over the back of the couch a little.

Blond brows rose and Q knew just what he had read about.

"Seems like I was spared that fate."

"Seems like it."

"Claws and fangs?"

Q smiled a little. He felt a gentle caress against his neck. "Claws and fangs," he confirmed. "I'm not sure how much is truth and how much is the fear Kenna MacNeill felt when confronted with the phoenix. I'm not even sure if the man was truly that terrifying. She was probably as sensitive to the phoenix's energies as Moira is when it comes to you. That tends to blur the lines of reality and fantasy."

"She called it a separate entity as well."

Q scoffed. "Really, 007? You believe that? You have been a phoenix for close to two decades. When did you ever feel like you were hosting a parasite?"

It got Q a little smirk.

"Please," he muttered, rolling his eyes, exasperation in his voice. "I'm your bonded counter-balance and I've had the pleasure of looking at what you are up close and personal several times already. Nothing about it is a parasite or a creature of darkness or whatever else they call it. You are a preternatural. Like I am. You have an amazing ability."

"Like you?" Bond murmured, lips moving against his ear.

"Like me," he agreed, not the least bit shy about it. "And while your very nature makes you more primal, more prone to violence, and extremely adept at killing, it's nothing a werewolf, a hellhound or a baezil or many more aren't either."

"Baezil?"

Q waved a hand. "Basilisk. You encountered one in Chile."

Bond grimaced. "The goon who looked like he was on a steroid trip."

"Yes. Very simple-minded, very strong, very ferocious, and hard to stop. Extremely violent creature."

"I noticed."

"What it means, James, is that whether you are a supernatural or a preternatural, your nature leads you. You are instinctual. Nothing bad about it."

Bond chuckled, dropping a kiss against Q's temple. "No, nothing bad about instincts."

The technopath closed the file, storing it in a safe place. "Moira might try to understand what you are, what we are, but she is nothing but instinctual either. Her reactions to you are without thought. She doesn't use her brain."

"Neither do you," the Double-Oh purred. "I know you tried to analyze this, between us, all of us, in the beginning, but you never came up with an answer. You react instinctually, too."

Q leaned back his head, looking at his partner upside down. The wintery blue eyes were alive with mirth and humor. The crinkle around Bond's eyes was tell-tale and the handsome face, with its light beard shadow, looked relaxed and open.

No, this wasn't an abomination. A cold-blooded assassin, yes. A trained killer, yes. Lethal, highly dangerous, very effective and one of the best field agents of MI6.

But that was who he had been trained to be, following his natural traits, giving in to the blood-lust and the violence barely shackled inside. But never a monster.

Q reached up, pulling him down into a kiss. It was sloppy and far from suave.

"You're a nightmare, James Bond," he said when they parted. "But you are my nightmare. It won't stop me from trying to understand as much as I can about it means to be a phoenix, but I never was and never will be scared of you."

Bond slid over the back of the couch, all sinewy grace and smooth moves. Q let himself get pushed back and straddled, the tablet landing on the floor in a controlled slide.

Then those lips were back. Hungry and powerful, teeth nipping at his own lips, demanding entrance, and he kissed back, refusing to be dominated or surrender just like that. Stubble rubbed against Q's smooth-shaven skin.

The phoenix was there, looking through human eyes, cold and controlled, fiery and hot in its nature and wants and needs. It was looking at Q, the ravenous hunger clear to see, and he smiled at it. He touched the handsome face, fingers sliding through the short hair, pulling James closer again.

"I love you," he whispered against the slick lips, nipping at them.

The answer was a hard kiss, hips grinding down against his, the tremor passing through the powerful frame tell-tale.

James' face was open, reflecting emotions Q had seen often before. Emotions he could name. Emotions Bond had expressed in words once or twice.

The kiss grew more affectionate, more exploring, soft and deep.

Making out on the couch.

Q almost laughed.

It felt so good, so relaxing, so wonderfully them.

Blunt, strong fingers buried themselves in the longish, dark hair and Q smiled against the hungry lips.

Bond relaxed more against him, heavy but not too heavy in his arms, and they lay together, breathing together. This – them - it was about more than just the hunger that needed to be sated. It was about more had primordial power. It was about closeness, balance, calming the fierce, ferocious nature of the phoenix, and taking what Q needed in turn.

Without fear.

Without apology.

"I love you," James said into the silence.

Q ran a calming caress over the strong neck, smiling a little more. He pressed a kiss against the blond head.

His phoenix.

Who wouldn't end up consuming itself. James Bond was his and he was the phoenix's counter-balance. He had saved this very special man for a pre-destined end. Maybe one of the few of his kind who had found that person.

Q made a mental note to look into who Finn had been. There might be more notes somewhere, in obscure libraries or in private collections. A lot had already been digitalized, scanned, stored, saved for generations. He would also ask Finch if he had someone on hand who might know where to look.

Finn hadn't been one of the lucky ones. Like so many.

But James wouldn't perish like that. Not as long as there was the counter-balance.

tbc...


	10. Chapter 10

Bond was sent on a mission three days later.

It actually went smoothly and Q had to confess he was a little bored as he guided his agent through the busy streets of Bangalore, India, going after a hard drive with sensitive data on it.

No one died.

Nothing blew up.

And the thief didn't even notice when Bond lifted the hard drive off him.

It was as close to anticlimactic as Q had ever experienced a mission with the infamous 007.

He was almost worried.

x X XX xx X

The second mission had the excitement the first had been missing. Q could have gone without having his agent nearly die, go missing for forty-eight hours, and end up a mess in a ditch. He lost him again after a brief moment of contact on a stolen cell phone, though the junior agent who had been with Bond reported a successful recovery of an important piece of stolen tech.

The successful recovery of James Bond had to wait until Q could finally pinpoint his location, following weak signals from pilfered phones. The extraction team got to him just before the men of the arms dealer did.

Bond took out four and three more were taken care of by the extraction team.

Q leaned back in his seat and sighed when he finally got the okay, when he finally knew that Bond was on his way home.

"Bloody menace," he muttered, rubbing his aching eyes.

"You knew that when you got him."

Q blinked and put his glasses back on. Bill Tanner gave him a tired smile, looking as rumpled as Q felt.

"Yes, indeed I did." He clicked off his terminal. "He has a penchant for trouble."

"Always had and always will have." Tanner leaned a hip against the table. "Go home, Q. 007 won't be back for the next twenty-four hours. He was airlifted to Canberra and they won't let him go until he's stable for the next flight. Knowing his… abilities, he'll be back sooner than should he healthy."

The technopath refused to comment or react in any way. Bond's penchant for surviving against all odds was known throughout MI6. That he healed just a little better and faster than the average human was something that had happened after their connection had formed and evolved.

"You'll need to be on your toes when he gets back," Tanner went on, a wry smile on his lips. "Have Barker take over for you when he does. You'll have your hands full. And we need to make a dent in your overtime, quartermaster."

He sighed. "Yes, sir."

x X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx X

Reese sat in front of the laptop, screen open, gazing at the window that demanded his password.

He knew it.

He had known it for a while now, but he had yet to enter the fifteen digits and open the file Finch had handed him. Entrusted him with.

John drummed the fingers of his right hand onto the worn desk top. He had chosen one of the side rooms of the library, one that had power, one he had used before to simply relax, wait, spend some time. It was spacious, had probably been an office before the library had been closed. The windows were grimy with the dirt of years of neglect.

"He wanted me to know," he said, eyes right on the small webcam lens.

The red light winked on and off again.

Finch wasn't there yet.

He was alone.

Except for it. The Machine. Watching him.

"I don't need to know," he continued talking, almost to himself. "I know him. All I need to know I do."

He had chased the elusive billionaire in the beginning, had tried to discover who the man who had hired him, paid him an insane amount of money, truly was. Finch had always been at least two steps ahead of him,. Whatever Reese had thought he had discovered turned out to be nothing but another cover identity in the end.

He smiled.

It had been a challenge and in a way it still was. Harold wasn't just someone who paid an ex-military, ex-CIA operative to bust a few kneecaps and save a person. He had known all about Reese and he had risked himself by exposing himself to John Reese.

In the end both men had won. In the end, John had given Harold his ultimate trust.

"I don't need it," he murmured.

Fifteen dots suddenly appeared in the password request window.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Reese frowned at the webcam, then raised his eyes to the small surveillance camera in the corner.

"Pushy."

The dots stayed. The final decision was up to him.

"What could there possibly be that I don't already know?" he asked, voice soft and low. He knew The Machine picked it up anyway.

The red light winked on and off again.

Reese simply sat there, looking at the password window. His fingers rested on the keys, unmoving.

A second window popped up. It looked like a chat window.

He wants you to know.

Reese cocked an eyebrow. Since the hard reset The Machine hadn't really communicated directly with either of the two men. It had sent the numbers, nothing else.

Now it got directly involved? Over Finch's gift to Reese?

"I don't need it," he said quietly.

It was his gift.

He quirked a little smile. "Which I accepted. I'm just not removing the wrapping."

The cursor blinked for a while. Then, He trusts you

"I know," he said quietly.

It is the most he has ever given to anyone.

Even Grace had never known him. And John had always wondered, until recently. The hellhound had settled down, had calmed, his curiosity sated. He knew who his partner was, instinctively, and that was enough.

Curling his fingers into a fist, he closed his eyes for a second.

Harold had wanted him to see this. He had wanted him to know. The Machine, too.

There was a soft noise, barely audible, but it told Reese of Finch's approach. He shut the laptop and rose, smoothly moving out into the corridor to shadow the cipher a little.

"Mr. Reese," Finch said the moment he entered the corridor. "Quite an early start."

Reese stepped out of the shadows, smiling. Of course Harold would know; if not through The Machine, which was probably still watching attentively, then because of their connection.

"I'm an early riser, Finch."

"Still trying to impress your boss?"

He chuckled at the little teasing reminder. "Do I have to?"

It got him a glance and a barely-there smile. Finch didn't comment.

He followed his employer and partner into the main computer area.

"Do we have another number?"

"We do, actually." Finch sat down and his fingers flew over the keyboard. "Donatella Riviera. Thirty-nine. Waitress at a high-end Italian restaurant."

Reese felt the usual thrill of another case, another mission, another hunt, and he brushed his fingers over his partner's neck as he walked out of the library room.

"Let's find out what is going on in her life then."

"I've sent you her address and that of the restaurant. Good luck, Mr. Reese."

He grinned, then exited the building.

x X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx X

Bond was back in England two days later and mobile another day after that. Tanner debriefed him in Medical and finally sent him on his way home. Q received a brief text about that fact, though he already knew.

It paid to be a technopath sometimes.

When his wayward agent walked into the flat he looked a little too pale to be healthy, a little too ragged around the edge, but at least he hadn't had to resurrect this time.

"You look like you had an encounter with an angry, knife-wielding hedgehog," the quartermaster remarked neutrally.

Bond's lips curled into a little smile. His face was riddled with healing cuts and scrapes.

"And if you say 'I'm fine' you are going to spend the night on the couch."

"Cruel punishment for an invalid, Q."

"I know Medical's reports," he went on. "I also know you're on medical leave until everything has healed."

"A week."

Q acknowledged that with a nod, though they both knew it wouldn't take that long.

"Due to your little stunt, Tanner had me take overtime and I'll be off work for the next three days."

Bond raised an eyebrow and Q suspected it was stinging, pulling at a cut that was running along the eyebrow in question. The glint in the blue eyes was telling and he rolled his own eyes.

"Dinner's delivery," the technopath only said, already checking the estimated delivery time. The driver was en route and it would take about fifteen more minutes.

Bond walked over to him, the limp barely perceptible, though Q noticed. There was also the way he favored his right side. Bruised and cracked ribs.

"No welcome home?" the Double-Oh teased as he stepped up close.

Q smiled a little. "You'll get a welcome, but the welcome home will have to wait." He leaned forward, kissing the chapped lips.

Bond's fingers slid into the longish, dark strands, keeping the younger man's head in place, deepening the kiss. Q felt something curl thought him, reacting to the force of nature that was his agent. He felt the phoenix, tired, healing, but still strong, and he carefully stroked over the uninjured side.

"Later," he whispered against James' lips when they parted. "Without pain."

The wintery eyes were intense, hungry, needy, but Bond stepped back a little, nodding almost imperceptibly.

x X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx X

Q hadn't really been inside the HUD ever since The Machine had overwhelmed him. It hadn't been fear, it had been… something like fear. Coupled with respect. He didn't think The Machine would hurt him, break the shields, the barrier, between it and Q, but the memories were there.

The strength and power, the maelstrom of data, the vast, seemingly endless ocean that was this unique program.

Q had looked into an abyss that had looked back. An abyss that encompassed the world.

Strong fingers interlaced with his and squeezed his hand. He looked into the glacially blue eyes of his partner, saw the warmth and strength, but also the fierce, primordial thing that was his nature. The physical contact was almost like a jolt to the one that connected their souls.

"I'll be there," Bond murmured.

"You always are," Q replied softly. "You can never not be there."

James' lips curled into a slow smile. Q drew a breath, then simply slipped into the HUD. It was an easy process, as normal as breathing to him, and when he looked at the countless screens that reminded him of his work place, part of him relaxed a little.

The world of technology was just beyond his finger tips. It wasn't a place to shy away from; it was what his brain had been made for to conquer. He was firmly anchored in his partner and when he looked back, the wall of darkness wasn't something to feel afraid of.

And it spread.

It was encroaching from the sides and behind, forming a midnight black sky over him. It was cold and hot, fire and ice. It was endless energy, nightmarish energy, taken from the depths of time and space. It was as primordial as it was vicious and driven by pure instinct, lusting for violence and blood.

It was the phoenix.

And it was the most calming thing Q had ever felt.

Razor sharp claws shimmered at the edge of the dark veil.

His safety net.

The claws were an illusion, but they were also real. In here, within their psychic connection, they could shred his mind, tear him apart, but they never would. It would never harm him in any way. This was what kept him safe and sane. This was what Moira had felt and was terrified of.

Q smiled more. He turned to look at what lay beyond the HUD and found the presence of The Machine just like he remembered it. It was powerful and calm and just a reflection of what the program really was.

The technopath simply watched, close to the barrier but not even close to touching it.

He felt the brush of claws against his back, felt the phoenix close, the terrifying preternatural nothing but calm and assertive. Q threaded his very soul through those razor claws, balanced and anchored.

The Machine was watching him, aware of the preternatural mind that had protected it not so long ago.

It was... breath-taking. From the viewpoint of a technopath it was perfection. The data streams, the codes, the endless feeds from all over the world… Q had been there, right in the middle, looking at a million screens, hearing a million voices, and he knew this wasn't even everything. He had been in a HUD that reduced his own to that of an amateur. There had been an endless wall of screens, running on forever and ever. He had seen it, experienced it, and still he hadn't touched it.

Not truly.

He would lose his mind if he did.

The Machine had kept him from falling over the edge, from even stumbling too close, like a parent keeping an eye on a child learning to walk.

Right now, there was no connection, no closeness. There was the shield between them, protecting Q from the sheer endless waves of data.

The Machine suddenly slid away from the remote contact and seemed to disappear mostly in the world of the web. It was still there, still a powerful entity, but no longer so prominently visible.

Q felt himself smile, felt the darkness of his partner blanket him, draw him away from the HUD, and he let him do it. He hadn't even been close to a zone-out, but the slight infraction of The Machine, the threat of coming closer, of losing his mind in the maelstrom of data, had been enough for James to react.

When he opened his physical eyes he was flat on his back, James hovering above him, the blue eyes intense and lit up with something that was still very… primal. There was a very noticeably possessive aura around him, the tension almost palpable. Strong fingers cupped Q's cheek, the thumb brushing over the skin in a gentle caress.

The technopath smiled.

Bond mirrored the smile.

No fangs, no claws, no shifting. His partner would never be able to do it and he was quite glad. While he had never asked Finch, he was convinced that Reese tended to shift, show his claws and fangs. With Bond it were only the eyes, and even that sometimes looked like nothing but an illusion that only Q could see. No, as fascinating as fangs might be, he was quite content not to have to kiss around them. Or worry about shredded clothes and claw marks on his skin.

Q pulled himself off that tangent of thought and pushed himself up on his elbows, feeling no ill effects of his foray into the HUD.

"I'm fine," he simply said.

"I know," was the husky reply.

Q pulled him into a kiss, lips brushing over lips. It wasn't foreplay; it wasn't meant to arouse. It was simply a contact to calm the preternatural side.

And it worked.

Bond's fingers slid into his hair, messing up the longish strands, and he grinned, easy and open and relaxed.

"Thank you," Q simply said.

"I'll always be there," was the low promise.

And he would do everything in his power to keep what had happened already from happening again. Even if the phoenix wasn't really capable of keeping The Machine at bay.

James would try.

He would fight.

For Q.

x X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx Xx X XX xx X

It was five in the morning and New York City was still waking up. Some people were out and about, coming home from work or going to their early shift. Some were taking the dogs out, some were drifting home from parties, and some were running laps through the various parks if they hadn't gone to one of the endless number of 24/7 fitness establishments.

Reese was running laps. Dressed in gray and dark blue sweats, the hood of his sweater covering his head, a scarf around his neck, he was already into his second hour of running.

He was an early bird.

So was Finch.

The cipher was sitting on a park bench, laptop open and displaying several windows full of data streams, email client accounts and news feeds. He alternated between work and watching the hellhound run.

He liked watching.

He liked watching John move.

Finch smiled a little to himself, trying to drag his eyes away from the slender figure moving so easily along the footpaths, almost effortlessly, not really showing signs of tiring. Reese had an incredible endurance, and no, he wasn't thinking about the bed at all.

He felt no regrets, no jealousy, at how this man had what Harold had lost. He had been here before the accident, like John, running, working out. It would never happen again, but the pain of loss was gone. Harold just enjoyed the sight, the warm feeling of contentment that he hadn't had in too long.

"Ready to go, Finch?"

The soft voice in his ear drew him out of his musings and he closed the laptop.

"Ready, Mr. Reese."

Finch rose and started to walk toward the park exit, his limp as always present, making him so much slower than the average walker. Reese, who had been halfway across the park, easily caught up with him, looking flushed, sweaty, breathing just a little more than normally. His eyes were alight with the rush of the work-out, and he shot Harold an easy smile.

"No new number," Finch told him.

"Good. I feel like a large breakfast."

He chuckled. "I'll meet you there."

Reese's acknowledging smile was open and unguarded, then he trotted off to his place to shower and a change of clothes. Finch simply called ahead to a restaurant he preferred, ordering the usual to be picked up in half an hour.

x X XX xx X

Forty minutes later he let himself into John's place, carrying the breakfast bags.

x X XX xx X

Across the Atlantic, safely ensconced in Q branch, the quartermaster of MI6 was busy guiding his Double-Oh agent through hacking into a multi-billion dollar computer to steal one specific file and make the whole system unusable for the foreseeable future.

That Bond had killed three people to get where he was now was of no consequence at the moment.

That there was an explosive device just waiting to be triggered didn't register consciously with Q, though he knew it was there.

That his Double-Oh had broken a rib or two and was most likely suffering from a concussion hadn't stopped the agent in question from doing what he had come here to do.

Q had already sought and found three different escape routes and an extraction team was waiting for him to give them the green light.

Just a normal day at work.


End file.
